
Gass 

Book _ 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 





A MIRROR OF SHALOTT 































































































































. 











































































































































































/ MIRROR OF 
SHALOTT 

Being a Collection of Tales told at 
an Unprofessional Symposium 


By 

Rev. Robert Hugh Benson 

Author of “ The Sentimentalists, * f etc. 


Primus est deorum cultus deos credere 


New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 


BENZIGER BROTHERS 


PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE 






UBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Codes Received 

JUN 11 190 r 

/l Copyright Ertfry 
HJJsV'UL t h 1 5 07 

/LASS CL XXC„ No. 

v /I 9 o$o 

copy a. 


Copyright, 1907, by Benziger Brothers 


Contents 


PAGE 

Prologue .... 7 

I Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 21 
II Father Meuron’s Tale . 43 

III Father Brent’s Tale . . 67 

IV The Father Rector’s Tale . 87 

V Father Girdlestone’s Tale 

(0> (ii)> («0 • • -109 

VI Father Bianchi’s Tale . 167 
VII Father Jenks* Tale . .18 3 

VIII Father Martin’s Tale . 205 
IX Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale . 229 
X Father Macclesfield’s Tale 259 
XI Father Stein’s Tale . . 277 

XII Mr. Percival’s Tale . . 289 

XIII My Own Tale . . .313 














































* 































































































































































































































































PROLOGUE 


“I maintain,” said Monsignor with a brisk 
air of aggressiveness, and holding his pipe a 
moment from his mouth, “I maintain that 
agnosticism is the only reasonable position in 
these matters. Your common agnostic is no 
agnostic at all; he is the most dogmatic of 
sectarians. He declares that such things do 
not happen, or that they can be explained 
always on a materialistic basis. Now, your 
Catholic ” 

Father Bianchi bristled and rolled his black 
eyes fiercely. If he had had a moustache he 
would have twirled it. 

We were sitting in the upstairs sala of the 
presbytery attached to the Canadian Church 
of S. Filippo in Rome. It had been a large, 
comfortless room, stone floored, stone walled, 
and plaster ceilinged, but it had been made 
possible by numerous rugs, a number of arm- 
chairs, and an English fireplace. Above, in 
the cold plaster, dingy, flesh-colored gods and 
nymphs attempted to lounge on cotton clouds 


8 


Prologue 

with studied ease, looking down dispiritedly 
upon seven priests and myself, a layman, 
who sat in a shallow semicircle round the red 
logs. In 1871 the house had fallen into secu- 
lar hands, whence issued the gods and nymphs, 
but in 1897 the Church had come by 
her own again, and had not yet banished 
Olympus. There was no need to annihilate 
the conquered. 

In the centre sat the Father Rector, a placid 
old man, and round about him were the rest 
of us — Monsignor Maxwell, a French priest, 
an English, an Italian, a Canadian, a German, 
and myself. This was five years ago. I do 
not know where these people are now — one I 
think is in heaven, two I should suppose in 
purgatory, four on earth. In spite of my 
feelings toward Padre Bianchi, I should 
assign him to purgatory. He made a good 
death two years later in the Naples epidemic. 

We had begun at supper by discussing mod- 
ern miracles. The second nocturn had fur- 
nished the text to the mouth of Monsignor, 
and we had passed on by natural channels to 


Prologue 9 

levitation, table-turning, family curses, ghosts, 
and banshees. The Italian was sceptical and 
scornful. Such things, in his opinion, did not 
take place; he excepted only the incidents 
recorded in the lives of the saints. I did not 
mind his scepticism (that, after all, injures no 
one but the sceptic), but scorn and contumely 
is another matter, and I was glad that Canon 
Maxwell had taken him in hand, for that 
priest has a shrewd and acrid tongue, and 
wears purple, besides, round his person and on 
his buttons, so he speaks with authority. 

“You have some tale, then, no doubt, 
Monsignor?” sneered the Italian. 

The Englishman smiled with tight lips. 

“Every one has,” he said briefly. “Even 
you, Padre Bianchi, if you will but tell it.” 

The other shook his head indulgently. 

“I will swear,” he said, “that none here has 
such a tale at first hand.” 

It was Father Meuron’s turn to bristle. 

“But yes!” he exclaimed. 

Canon Maxwell drew on his pipe a moment 
or two and regarded the fire. 


IO 


Prologue 

“I have a proposition to make,” he said. 
“Father Bianchi is right. I have one tale, 
and Father Meuron has another. With the 
Father Rector’s permission we will tell our 
tales, one each night. On Sunday two or three 
of us are supping at the French College, so 
that shall be a holiday, and by Monday night 
these other gentlemen will no doubt have re- 
membered experiences — even Father Bianchi, 
I believe. And Mr. Benson shall write them 
all down, if he wishes to, and make an honest 
penny or two, if he can get any publisher to 
take the book.” 

I hastened to express my approval of the 
scheme. 

The Father Rector moved in his chair. 

“That will be very amusing, Monsignor. I 
am entirely in favor of it, though I doubt my 
own capacity. I propose that Canon Max- 
well takes the chair.” 

“Then I understand that all will contribute 
one story,” said Monsignor briskly, “on those 
terms ?” 


There was a chorus of assent. 


Prologue 1 1 

“One moment, Monsignor,” interrupted 
Father Brent; “would it not be worth while 
to have a short discussion first as to the whole 
affair? I must confess that my own ideas are 
not clear.” 

“Well,” said Monsignor shortly, “on what 
point?” 

The younger priest mused a moment. 

“It is like this,” he said; “half at least of 
the stories one hears have no point — no 
reason. Take the ordinary haunted-house 
tale or the appearances at the time of death. 
Now, what is the good of all that? They 
tell us nothing; they don’t generally ask for 
prayers. It is just a white woman wringing 
her hands, or a groaning or something. At 
the best one only finds a skeleton behind the 
panelling. Now, my story, if I tell it, has 
absolutely no point at all.” 

“No point?” said Monsignor; “you mean 
that you don’t understand the point, or that 
no one does; is that it?” 

“Well, yes; but there is more, too. How 
do you square these things with purgatory? 


12 


Prologue 

How can spirits go wandering about, and be 
so futile at the end of it, too? Then why is 
everything so vague? Why don’t they give 
us a hint? I’m not wanting precise informa- 
tion, but a kind of hint of the way things go. 
Then the whole thing is mixed up with such 
childish nonsense. Look at the spiritualists, 
and the tambourine business, and table-rap- 
ping. Either those things are true, even if 
they’re diabolical — and in that case people in 
the spiritual world seem considerably sillier 
even than people in this — or they’re not true ; 
and in that case the whole thing is so fraudu- 
lent that it seems useless to inquire. Do you 
see my point?” 

“I see about twenty,” said Monsignor; 
“and it would take all night to answer them. 
But let me take two. Firstly, I am entirely 
willing to allow that half the stories one hears 
are fraudulent or hysterical — I’m quite ready 
to allow that. But it seems to me that there 
remain a good many others; and if one doesn’t 
accept those to some extent, I don’t know 
what becomes of the value of human evidence. 


Prologue 1 3 

Now, one of your points, I take it, is that even 
these seem generally quite pointless and use- 
less; is that it?” 

“More or less,” said Father Brent. 

“Well, first I would say this: It seems per- 
fectly clear that these other stories aren’t sent 
to help our faith, or anything like that. I 
don’t believe that for one instant. We have 
got all we need in the Catholic Church, and 
the moral witness, and the rest. But what I 
don’t understand in your position is this: 
What earthly right have you got to think that 
they’re sent just for your benefit?” 

The other demurred. 

“I don’t,” he said; “but I suppose they’re 
sent for somebody’s benefit.” 

“Somebody still on earth, you mean?” 

“Well — yes.” 

Monsignor leaned forward. 

“My dear Father, how very provincial you 
are — if I may say so! Here is this exceed- 
ingly small earth, certainly with a very fair 
number of people living on it, but absolutely 
a mere fraction of the number of intelligences 


1 4 Prologue 

that are in existence. And all about us — 
since we must use that phrase — is a spiritual 
world compared with which the present gen- 
eration is as a family of ants in the middle of 
London. Things happen ; this spiritual world 
is crammed full of energy and movement and 
affairs. ... We know practically nothing 
of it all, except those few main principles 
which are called the Catholic Faith — nothing 
else. What conceivable right have we to de- 
mand that the little glimpses that we seem 
to get sometimes of the spiritual world are 
given to us for our benefit or information?” 

“Then why are they given?” 

Monsignor made a disdainful sound with 
closed lips. 

“My dear Father, a boy drops a piece of 
orange peel into the middle of the ants’ nest 
one day. The ants summon a council at once 
and sit on it. They discuss the lesson that 
is to be learned from the orange peel; they 
come to the conclusion that Buckingham 
Palace must be built entirely of orange peel, 
and that the reason why it was sent to them 


Prologue 1 5 

was that they were to learn that great and 
important lesson.” 

Father Brent sat up suddenly. 

“My dear Monsignor, you seem to me to 
strike at the root of Revelation. If we aren’t 
to deduce things from supernatural incidents, 
why should we believe in our religion?” 

Monsignor lifted a hand. 

“Next day there is slid into the ants’ nest 
a box divided into compartments, containing 
exactly that which the ants need for the 
winter — food and so forth. The ants hold 
another Parliament. Two-thirds of them 
who have determined in the last hour or two 
to reject the Buckingham-Palace-orange-peel 
theory reject this, too. All is fortuitous, they 
say. The orange peel was, therefore the box 
is.” 

Father Brent relapsed, smiling. 

“That is all right,” he said; “I was a fool.” 

“One-third,” continued the Canon severely, 
“come to the not unreasonable conclusion that 
a box which shows such evident signs of in- 
telligence, and of knowledge and care for 


1 6 Prologue 

their circumstances, proceeds from an Intelli- 
gence which wishes them well. But there is 
a further schism. Half of those who accept 
Revelation remain agnostic about most other 
things, and say frankly that they don’t know 
— especially as regards the orange peel. The 
other half rages on about the orange peel; 
some are inclined to think that there was no 
orange peel — it was no more than an halluci- 
nation ; others think that there is some remark- 
able lesson to be learned from it, and these 
differ evidently as to what the lesson is. 
Others, agala, regard it unintelligently and 
say to one another, ‘Look, a piece of orange 
peel! How very beautiful and important V ” 

I laughed softly to myself. Monsignor 
spoke with such earnestness. I would like him 
to be my advocate if I ever get into trouble. 

“Now, my dear Father,” he went on, “I 
take up the first position of those who accept 
Revelation, and I acknowledge the fact of the 
orange peel; but really nothing more. My 
religion teaches me that there is a spiritual 
world of indefinite size; and that things not 


Prologue 17 

only may, but must, go on there which have 
nothing particular to do with me. Every now 
and then I get a glimpse of some of these 
things — an orange pip at the very least. But 
I don’t immediately demand an explanation. 
It probably isn’t deliberately meant for me 
at all. It has something to do with affairs 
of which I know nothing, and which manage 
to get on quite well without me.” 

Father Brent, still smiling, protested once 
more. 

“Very ingenious, Monsignor; but then why 
does it happen to happen to you?” 

“I have not the slightest idea, any more 
than I have the slightest idea why Providence 
made me break a tooth this morning. I ac- 
cept the fact ; I believe that somehow it works 
into the scheme. But I do not for that reason 
desire to understand it. . . . And as for pur- 
gatory — well, I ask you, what in the world 
do we know about purgatory except that there 
is such a thing, and that the souls of the faith- 
ful detained there are assisted by our suf- 
frages? What conceivable possibility is there 


1 8 Prologue 

that we should understand the details of its 
management? My dear Father, no one in 
this world has a greater respect for, or confi- 
dence in, dogmatic theology than myself; in 
fact, I may say that it is the only thing which 
I do have confidence in. But I respect the 
limits which it itself has laid down/’ 

“Then you are an agnostic as regards every- 
thing but the Faith?” 

“Certainly I am. Well, possibly, except 
mathematics, too. And so is every wise man. 
I have my ideas of, and I make guesses some- 
times; but I really do not think that they 
have any value.” 

There was silence a moment. 

“Then there is this, too,” he continued; “it 
really is important to remember that the 
spiritual world exists in another mode from 
that in which the material world exists. That 
is where the ant simile breaks down. It is 
more as if an ant went to the Royal Academy. 
... Of course, in the Faith we have an 
adequate and guaranteed translation of the 
supernatural into the natural and vice versa ; 


Prologue 1 9 

and in these ghost stories, or whatever we 
call them, we have a certain sort of transla- 
tion, too. The real thing, whatever it is, ex- 
presses itself in material terms, more or less. 
But in these we have no sort of guarantee that 
the translation is adequate, or that we are 
adequate to understand it. We can try, of 
course ; but we really don’t know. Therefore 
it seems to me that in all ghost stories the 
best thing is to hear it, to satisfy ourselves 
that the evidence is good or bad — and then 
to hold our tongues. We don’t want elaborate 
commentaries on what may be, after all, an 
utterly corrupt text.” 

‘‘But some of them do support the Faith,” 
put in Father Brent. 

“So much the better, then. But it is much 
safer not to lean your weight on them. You 
never can tell. Now, with the Faith you can.” 

There was another silence. 

Then the Rector stood up, smiling. 

“Night prayers, reverend Fathers,” he said. 



















MONSIGNOR MAXWELL’S TALE 



I 


Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 

I was still thinking over the Canon’s remarks 
as I came up into the sala on the following 
evening. They seemed to me eminently sen- 
sible; or, in other words, they exactly repre- 
sented what I had always held myself, though 
I had never so expressed them even to my own 
mind. 

I felt some interest, therefore, in the ques- 
tion as to the class to which Monsignor’s own 
story would be found to belong — whether to 
that which contains merely a series of phe- 
nomena or to that which appeared to corrob- 
orate the Christian Religion. 

The rest of the company, with two or three 
strangers, were already in their places when 
I arrived, and Monsignor was enthroned in 
the centre chair, staring with a preoccupied 
look at the blazing fire. The Rector was on 
his right. 


24 A Mirror of Shalott 

The conversation died away at last; there 
was a shifting of attitudes. Then the Canon 
looked at his watch, bending his sleek gray 
head sideways. 

u We have twenty minutes,” he said in his 
terse way. Then he crossed his buckled feet 
and began without any preliminary comment. 

“This happened to me in England. Nat- 
urally I shall not mention where it took place, 
nor how long ago. I knew a man, a Catholic 
from birth, of a remarkable faith and piety. 
He had tried his vocation in Religion again 
and again, for he seemed a born Religious, 
but his health had always broken down, and 
he had finally married. He had been told by 
his Director that his vocation was evidently 
to live in the world and as a layman. Whether 
I agree or disagree with the latter part of 
his advice is not to the point, but there was 
no question as to the former part of it. The 
man’s health simply could not stand it. But 
he led a most mortified and interior life with 
his wife in his London house, with a servant 
or two to look after them, and was present 


Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 25 

daily at mass at the church that I served then. 
His wife, too, was a very exceptional woman, 
utterly devoted to her husband, and I may 
say that I never paid them a visit without 
being very much the better for it. 

“Now, he had a brother, a solicitor in a 
town in the North, also a Catholic, of course, 
whom I never saw, but who enters very ma- 
terially into the story. We will call the 
brothers, if you please, Mr. James and Mr. 
Herbert, though I need not say that these 
were not their names. 

“One morning after mass Mr. James came 
to me in the sacristy and said he wished to 
have a word with me, so I took him through 
into the presbytery and up into my own room. 
I could see that something was very much the 
matter with him. 

“He took a letter out and gave it to me 
to read. It was from his brother, Mr. Her- 
bert, and contained very sad news indeed — 
nothing else, in fact, than an announcement 
of his intention to secede from the Church. 
There was a story of a marriage difficulty, 


26 


A Mirror of Shalott 


too, as there so often is in such cases. He 
had fallen in love with a woman of strong 
agnostic convictions, and nothing would in- 
duce her to marry him unless he conformed 
to her religion, such as it was. But, to do 
Mr. Herbert justice, I could see that there was 
a real loss of faith as well. There were two 
or three sheets filled with arguments that I 
could see were real to the man — or statements, 
perhaps, rather than arguments — against the 
Incarnation and the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures and the authority of the Church, and so 
on, and I must confess that they were not 
mere clap-trap. The woman was plainly 
capable and shrewd, and had been talking to 
him, and both his heart and his head were 
seriously entangled. 

“Well, I handed the letter back to Mr. 
James, and said what I could — recommended 
a book or two, promised to get him prayers, 
and so on, but the man waved it aside. 

“ ‘Yes, yes, Father,’ he said; ‘I know, and 
I thank you, but I must do more than that. 
You don’t know what this means to me. I 


Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 27 

got the letter yesterday at midday, and I may 
say that I have done nothing but pray since, 
and this morning at mass I saw a light; at 
least, I think so, and I want your advice.’ 

“He was terribly excited, his eyes were 
bright and the lines in his face deeper than 
I had ever seen them, for he was only just 
entering middle age, and the papers shook 
in his hands. I did my best to quiet him, but 
it was no good. All his tranquillity, which 
had been one of his most striking virtues, 
was gone, and I could see that his whole being 
was rent. 

“ ‘You don’t know what this means to me,’ 
he said again. ‘There is only one thing to be 
done. I must offer myself for him,.’ 

“Well, I didn’t understand him at first, but 
we talked a little, and at last I found that the 
idea of mystical substitution had seized on his 
mind. He was persuaded that he must make 
an offering of himself to God, and ask to be 
allowed to bear the temptation instead of his 
brother. Of course, we know that that is 
one of the claims of the Contemplative, but, 


28 A Mirror of Shalott 

to tell the truth, I had never come across it 
before in my own experience. 

“Well, he didn’t want my opinion upon the 
doctrine, and, indeed, I was glad he didn’t, 
for I knew nothing about it myself; but he 
wanted to know if I thought him justified in 
running the risk — for he seemed to take it 
as a matter of course that I believed it. 

“ ‘Am I strong enough, Father?’ he asked. 
‘Can I bear it? I cannot imagine my losing 
my faith,’ and a smile just flickered on his 
mouth and vanished again in trembling; ‘but 
— but God knows how weak I am.’ 

“Well, I reassured him on that point, at 
any rate, and told him that so far as his faith 
was concerned I considered it robust enough. 
To tell the truth, I suppose I was a little care- 
less, because — because” — and Monsignor 
shifted a little in his chair and looked around 
— “well it was all so bewildering. 

“Well, he soon went after that, saying that 
he would tell his wife, and imploring me to 
get prayers for him in his struggle, and I was 
left alone to think it over. 


Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 29 

“For the next day or two he appeared at 
mass as usual, and just waited for me one 
morning to tell me that he had made the offer- 
ing of himself before God. Then I had to 
go into the country on some business or other 
and was away from Monday to Saturday. 

“Now, to tell the truth, I did not think of 
him very much ; I was harassed and bothered 
myself about my business, and scarcely did 
more than just mention his name at the altar, 
and I am ashamed to say I completely forgot 
to get prayers elsewhere for his brother or 
himself, and I was entirely unprepared for 
what was waiting for me when I reached home 
on the Saturday evening.” 

Monsignor paused a moment or two. He 
was evidently speaking with a certain diffi- 
culty. His brisk, business-like way of talking 
had just a tinge of feeling in it which it gen- 
erally lacked, and he moved in his chair now 
and then with something almost like nervous- 
ness. The other priests were silent. The 
young Englishman was bending forward in 
the firelight with his chin on his hands, and 


30 A Mirror of Shalott 

old Father Stein had sat back in his chair 
very quiet and was shading his face from the 
candlelight. 

“My housekeeper heard my key in the lock 
of the front door,” went on Canon Maxwell, 
“and was waiting for me in the hall. She told 
me that Mr. James’ wife had sent round four 
times for me that afternoon, saying she must 
have me at once on my return, and that any 
delay might be fatal. But it was not a case 
for the Last Sacraments, apparently. I was 
astonished by such phrases, but they were 
evidently word for word what she had said, 
for my housekeeper apologized for repeating 
them. 

“ ‘There is something terribly the matter, 
Father,’ she said; ‘the last time the servant 
was crying, and said that her master was out 
of his mind.’ 

“Well, I ran into church and told my peni- 
tents there that they must wait, or go to my 
colleague, and that I had had a sick call and 
did not know how long I should be away; 
and then I ran straight out of the church and 


Monsignor Maxwell's Tale 31 

down to the house, which was three or four 
streets off. (You must forgive my telling you 
this story with so many details; but some- 
how it is the only way I can do it; it is all as 
vivid and clear as if it had happened last 
week.) . . . 

“It was a November evening; all the lamps 
were lit as I passed out of the thoroughfare 
down the side road where his house was ; here 
the pavements were empty, and I ran again 
as fast as I could down the street and up the 
steps that led to his front door. Even as I 
stood there out of breath I knew that some- 
thing was seriously wrong. 

“Down in the kitchen below, as I could see 
plainly through the lighted windows, the Irish 
cook had been kneeling with her face hidden 
on the table; and she was now staring up at 
me with her eyes red and her hair disordered 
as the peal of the bell died away. Then she 
was out in the area almost screaming: 

“ ‘Oh, God bless you, Father P and then the 
door opened and I was in the hall. 

“ ‘Where is he?’ I asked the maid, all pant- 


32 A Mirror of Shalott 

ing with my run; and she told me, ‘In his 
study,’ and then I was up at the door in a 
moment, knocking, and then, without wait- 
ing, I went in. 

“It was one of those little back rooms that 
you see sometimes in London houses, just at 
the top of the stairs that lead down to the 
servants’ quarters. There was a little garden 
at the back of the house and a side street be- 
yond that. The curtains over the window had 
not been drawn, and a lamp shone into the 
room from the lane outside. But I did not 
understand that at the time. I was only 
aware that the room was dark, except for a 
pale light that lay across the floor and wall 
and on the door that I closed behind me. 

“But the horror of the room was beyond 
anything that I have ever felt. It — it” — 
Monsignor hesitated — “it was almost physi- 
cal, and yet I knew it was not, but it was the 
sense of some extraordinary influence, spiritual 
and on the point of — ” He stopped again. 
“You must forgive me,” he said, “but I can 
put it in no way but this- — it seemed on the 


Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 33 

point of expressing itself visibly or tangibly; 
at any rate, I felt my hair rise slowly as I 
stood there, and then I leaned back against 
the door and groped for the handle.” 

Old Father Stein nodded gravely. 

“I know, I know,” he said in his heavy 
voice; “it was so with me at Benares.” 

“It was so dark at first,” went on Mon- 
signor, “that I could see nothing but the out- 
lines of the furniture. There was the writing 
table, and so on, immediately on my left, the 
fireplace beyond it in the left-hand wall, a 
tall bureau beside the window opposite me. 
Then I felt my hand seized and gripped in 
the dark, and I looked down, horribly startled, 
and saw that his wife had been kneeling at his 
prie-dieu on the right, and had turned and 
clutched my hand as she saw me in the light 
of the street lamp, but she said nothing, and 
her silence was the worst of all. 

“I looked again round the room and then 
suddenly gasped and, I must confess, nearly 
screamed, because quite close to me the man 
sat and stared up at me. I had been confused 


A Mirror of Shalott 


34 

as I came in, and I believe now that I only 
had not seen him, because I had taken the 
dark outline of his body and the whiteness of 
his face to be a little side-table with papers 
upon it that often stood by his writing-place. 

“Well, however that was, here was the man 
quite close to me, sitting bolt upright, with the 
lamplight falling on that deadly face, all lined 
as it was, with patches of dark beneath those 
awful, bright eyes.” 

Monsignor stopped again, and I could see 
that the hand on his chair arm twitched 
sharply once or twice. 

“Well, two or three times, I should think, 
I opened my mouth to speak, and I have never 
known before or since what it was literally not 
to be able to do it. It was as if a hand gripped 
my throat each time. I suppose it was a kind 
of hysterical contraction of the muscles. I 
understood then why the wife could not speak. 
The only emotion I was conscious of was an 
insane desire to get out of the room and the 
house, away from that terrifying silence and 
oppressiveness ; and, under God, I believe that 


Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 35 

the one thing that kept me there was that 
frightful grip on my fingers, that tightened 
as if the wife read my thoughts even as the 
desire surged up. 

“I stood there, I suppose, half a minute 
more before I moved or spoke, and then I 
made a little motion, and drew my fingers out 
of hers, and made the sign of the cross, and 
even then I dared not speak. But the face 
remained still in that tense quietness and the 
bright, sunken eyes never flinched or stirred. 

“Then I dropped on my knees; and at last 
with really an extraordinary effort, as if I was 
breaking something, I managed to speak and 
say a prayer or two — the Our Father and the 
Hail, Mary; I could remember nothing else. 
Then I glanced at him quickly, and he had 
not stirred, but was watching me with a kind 
of bitter indifference — that is all I can say of 
it. I went on with the creed, finished it, said 
Amen, and then one loud, harsh bark of laugh- 
ter broke from him, and — and — I could swear 
that something else laughed, too.” 

A sharp exclamation broke from Father 


36 A Mirror of Shalott 

Brent, and a kind of sigh from the French 
priest as Monsignor suddenly sat up and 
struck his hand on his knee at his last word, 
and my own heart leaped and stood still, while 
my nerves jangled like struck wires. 

“There, there,” said the Rector; “our 
nerves are out of order; be kind to us, Mon- 
signor.” 

He shook his head. 

“But I must tell you,” he said, “though I 
hardly know what words to use. . . . This 
other laughter was not like his. I could not 
swear that — that there was a vibration of 
sound. It might have been interior, but it 
was there; it was objective and external to 
me. . . . Only I was absolutely convinced that 
there was laughter, neither mine, nor the 
man’s, nor his wife’s. There ; that is all I can 
say of it.” 

He paused a moment. 

“Well,” he went on, “we got him upstairs 
at last, and on his bed. I tell you it was a 
very odd relief to get out of the room down- 
stairs. He had not slept, his wife whispered 


Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 3 7 

to me as we went up, for four nights — not 
since the Monday, in fact, and had scarcely 
eaten, either. There was no time to hear 
more, for he turned round as he walked up 
and looked at us as we held him, and there 
was no more talking with that face before us. 
And there we sat beside him in his bedroom — 
he lay quiet with closed eyes — and I did not 
dare to leave him till three or four in the 
morning, when I was nearly dead with 
weariness. His wife made me go then, and 
promised to send again if there was any 
change. 

“Well, during the sung mass, at which I 
was not officiating, the message came, and I 
was back at his house directly. There had 
been a change; he was now willing to talk. 
He looked ghastly, but his wife told me that 
she thought he had slept an hour or two after 
I had left. 

“Well, we talked, and I found that the 
man’s faith was gone — or perhaps it is safer 
to say completely obscured. I scarcely know 
how to express it, but it was as if he had prac- 


38 A Mirror of Shalott 

tically no conception of what I was talking 
about. 

“ ‘I believed it once,’ he said; ‘yes, I am 
sure I did, but I can’t imagine why or how.’ ” 

“ ‘Then what is all this trouble of mind 
about?’ I asked. 

“ ‘Why,’ he said, ‘why, if it is not true, 
what is left?’ 

“I didn’t quite see what he meant, and 
asked him. 

“ ‘You,’ he said, and just touched me with 
his finger; ‘you and I,’ and he touched him- 
self, ‘and — and — all this,’ and he tapped the 
table, ‘and — all that,’ and he flung his arm 
out toward the window and the chimney-pots 
and the bustling thoroughfare. ‘All of it — 
all of it — what does it all mean; what is the 
good of it?’ 

“It was a piteous thing to see his face, the 
blackness and the misery of his despair at an 
empty, meaningless world and a self that 
could do nothing but writhe and cry in the 
dark. 

“You see the whole thing for him stood or 


Monsignor Maxwell’s Tale 39 

fell by God, lived and moved in Him; now 
God was gone, and what was left? 

“Well, of course I reminded him of his 
offering of himself to God for his brother. 
God had accepted it, I told him; and he just 
laughed miserably in my face. 

“ ‘Do you think Herbert suffered like this?’ 
he asked. 

“Well, I was tired and bewildered, and this 
seemed to me an answer. Of course you all 
see the explanation. ” 

“The other suffered less because his faith 
was less,” put in Father Brent instantly. 

“Exactly,” said Monsignor. “Well, I am 
ashamed to say I didn’t see that, at least not 
clearly enough to put it to him ; but I did point 
out that it was of the very essence of his con- 
tract that he should suffer severely in the very 
manner in which he was suffering, and that 
the coincidence was remarkable ; and, further, 
that the fact that he was in such distress 
showed that God was something to him after 
all. I don’t know even then that I accepted 
the whole thing as being quite real. But what 


40 A Mirror of Shalott 

else could I say? . . . Well, he smiled again 
at that. 

“ ‘Have you never regretted a happy 
dream?’ he said. 

“Well, I am wearying you,” said Mon- 
signor, looking at his watch, “but I am just 
at the end. I went to that man every day for, 
I suppose, two or three hours for five or six 
weeks, and it seemed practically useless. I 
had never realized before so completely that 
faith was a gift which can be given or with- 
drawn; that it is something infused into us, 
not produced by us. Finally the man died of 
congestion of the brain.” 

“Good Lord!” said a voice. 

“Yes,” said Canon Maxwell, blowing down 
his pipe, “those — those were my sentiments.” 

“Monsignor! Do you mean he died with- 
out faith?” 

“Father Jenks, I gave him the sacraments. 
He asked for them. I did not press too many 
questions; I thought it best to leave well 
alone.” 


“And the brother?” 


Monsignor Maxwell's Tale 41 

“Oh, the brother — Mr. Herbert — was at 
the funeral, and informed me that the mar- 
riage was broken off, and I never heard of 
his apostasy. And there was one other person 
who contributed to the interest of the whole 
affair, and that was the wife.” 

“What happened to her?” 

“She became a Poor Clare. She told me 
that self-immolation was the only possible act 
for her after what she had seen and known.” 

There was a long silence. 

“Well, well, well,” said Father Bianchi. 






























































. 




































' 












































































































FATHER MEURON’S TALE 








II 


Father Meuron’s Tale 

Father Meuron was very voluble at supper 
on the Saturday. He exclaimed ; he threw out 
his hands; his bright black eyes shone above 
his rosy cheeks, and his hair appeared to stand 
more on end than I had ever known it. 

He sat at the further side of the horse-shoe 
table from myself, and I was able to remark 
on his gaiety to the English priest who sat 
beside me without fear of being overheard. 

Father Brent smiled. 

“He is drunk with la gloire ” he said. “He 
is to tell the story to-night. 

N.B. This explained everything. 

I did not look forward, however, to his 
recital. I was confident that it would be full 
of tinsel and swooning maidens who ended 
their days in convents under Father Meuron’s 
spiritual direction; and when we came upstairs 
I found a shadowy corner, a little back from 


46 A Mirror of Shalott 

the semicircle, where I could fall asleep if I 
wished without provoking remark. 

In fact, I was totally unprepared for the 
character of his narrative. 

When we had all taken our places, and 
Monsignor’s pipe was properly alight, and 
himself at full length in his deck chair, the 
Frenchman began. He told his story in his 
own language ; but I am venturing to render it 
in English as nearly as I am able. 

“My contribution to the histories,” he be- 
gan, seated in his upright arm-chair in the 
centre of the circle, a little turned away from 
me — “my contribution to the histories which 
these good priests are to recite is an affair of 
exorcism. That is a matter with which we 
who live in Europe are not familiar in these 
days. It would seem, I suppose, that grace 
has a certain power, accumulating through the 
centuries, of saturating even physical objects 
with its force. However, men may rebel, yet 
the sacrifices offered and the prayers poured 
out have a faculty of holding Satan in check 


Father Meuron’s Tale 


47 

and preventing his more formidable manifes- 
tations. Even in my own poor country at this 
hour, in spite of widespread apostasy, in spite 
even of the deliberate worship of Satan, yet 
grace is in the air; and it is seldom indeed that 
a priest has to deal with a case of possession. 
In your respectable England, too, it is the 
same ; the simple piety of Protestants has kept 
alive to some extent the force of the Gospel. 
Here in this country of Italy it is somewhat 
different. The old powers have survived the 
Christian assault, and while they cannot live 
in Holy Rome, there are corners where they 
do so.” 

From my place I saw Padre Bianchi turn a 
furtive eye upon the speaker, and I thought 
I read in it an unwilling assent. 

“However,” went on the Frenchman with 
a superb dismissory gesture, “my recital does 
not concern this continent, but the little island 
of La Souffriere. These circumstances are 
other than here. It was a stronghold of dark- 
ness when I was there in 1891. Grace, while 
laying hold of men’s hearts, had not yet pene- 


48 A Mirror of Shalott 

trated the lower creation. Do you understand 
me ? There were many holy persons whom I 
knew, who frequented the Sacraments and 
lived devoutly, but there were many of an- 
other manner. The ancient rites survived 
secretly among the negroes, and darkness — 
how shall I say it? — dimness made itself 
visible. 

‘‘However, to our history.” 

The priest resettled himself in his chair and 
laid his fingers together like precious instru- 
ments. He was enjoying himself vastly, and I 
could see that he was preparing himself for a 
revelation. 

“It was in 1891,” he repeated, “that I went 
there with another of our Fathers to the 
mission-house. I will not trouble you, gentle- 
men, with recounting the tale of our arrival, 
nor of the months that followed it, except 
perhaps to tell you that I was astonished by 
much that I saw. Never until that time had 
I seen the power of the Sacraments so evi- 
dent. In civilized lands, as I have suggested 
to you, the air is charged with grace. Each 


Father Meuron’s Tale 


49 

is no more than a wave in the deep sea. He 
who is without God’s favor is not without His 
grace at each breath he draws. There are 
churches, religions, pious persons about him; 
there are centuries of prayers behind him. 
The very buildings he enters, as M. Huys- 
mann has explained to us, are browned by 
prayer. Though a wicked child, he is yet 
in his father’s house: and the return from 
death to life is not such a crossing of the 
abyss, after all. But there in La Souffriere all 
is either divine or Satanic, black or white, 
Christian or devilish. One stands, as it were, 
on the seashore to watch the breakers of 
grace, and each is a miracle. I tell you I have 
seen holy Catechumens foam at the mouth and 
roll their eyes in pain, as the saving water fell 
on them, and that which was within went out. 
As the Gospel relates, ‘Spiritus conturbavil 
ilium : et elisus in terram, volutabatur spu- 
mans / 

Father Meuron paused again. 


I was interested to hear this corroboration 


50 A Mirror of Shalott 

of evidence that had come before me on other 
occasions. More than one missionary had 
told me the same thing; and I had found in 
their tales a parallel to those related by the 
first preachers of the Christian religion in the 
early days of the Church. 

“I was incredulous at first,” continued the 
priest, “until I saw these things for myself. 
An old father of our mission rebuked me for 
it. ‘You are an ignorant fellow,’ he said; 
‘your airs are still of the seminary.’ And 
what he said was just, my friends. 

“On one Monday morning as we met for 
our council I could see that this old priest had 
somewhat to say. M. Lasserre was his name. 
He kept very silent until the little businesses 
had been accomplished, and then he turned 
to the Father Rector. 

“ ‘Monseigneur has written,’ he said, ‘and 
given me the necessary permission for the 
matter you know, my father. And he bids 
me take another priest with me. I ask that 
Father Meuron may accompany me. He 
needs a lesson, this zealous young missionary.’ 


Father Meuron’s Tale 51 

“The Father Rector smiled at me as I sat 
astonished, and nodded at Father Lasserre to 
give permission. 

“ ‘Father Lasserre will explain all to you,’ 
he said as he stood up for the prayer. 

“The good priest explained all to me as the 
Father Rector had directed.” 

N.B. It appeared that there was a matter 
of exorcism on hand. A woman who lived 
with her mother and husband had been 
affected by the devil, Father Lasserre said. 
She was a Catechumen, and had been devout 
for several months, and all seemed well until 
this — this assault had been made on her soul. 
Father Lasserre had visited the woman and 
examined her, and had made his report to the 
Bishop, asking permission to exorcise the 
creature, and it was this permission that had 
been sent on that morning. 

“I did not venture to tell the priest that he 
was mistaken and that the affair was one of 
epilepsy. I had studied a little in books for 


52 A Mirror of Shalott 

my medical training, and all that I heard 
now seemed to confirm me in the diagnosis. 
There were the symptoms, easy to read. 
What would you have?” — the priest again 
made his little gesture — “I knew more in my 
youth than all the Fathers of the Church. 
Their affairs of devils were nothing but an 
affection of the brain — dreams and fancies! 
And if the exorcisms had appeared to be of 
direct service, it was from the effect of the 
solemnity upon the mind. It was no more.” 
He laughed with a fierce irony. 

“You know it all, gentlemen!” 

I had lost all desire to sleep now. The 
French priest was more interesting than I 
had thought. His elaborateness seemed dis- 
sipated; his voice trembled a little as he 
arraigned his ow T n conceit, and I began to 
wonder how his change of mind had been 
wrought. 

“We set out that afternoon,” he continued. 
“The woman lived on the further side of the 
island, perhaps a couple of hours’ travel, for 


Father Meuron’s Tale 53 

it was rough going; and as we went up over 
the path Father Lasserre told me more. 

“It seemed that the woman blasphemed. 
(The subconscious self, said I to myself, as 
M. Charcot has explained. It is her old habit 
reasserting itself.) 

“She foamed and rolled her eyes. (An 
affection of the brain, said I.) 

“She feared holy water; they dared not 
throw it on her, her struggles were so fierce. 
(Because she has been taught to fear it, said 

I.) 

“And so the good father talked, eyeing me 
now and again, and I smiled in my heart, 
knowing that he was a simple old fellow who 
had not studied the new books. 

“She was quieter after sunset, he told me, 
and would take a little food then. Her fits 
came on her for the most part at midday. 
And I smiled again at that. Why it should 
be so I knew. The heat affected her. She 
would be quieter, science would tell us, when 
evening fell. If it were the power of Satan 
that held her she would surely rage more in 


A Mirror of Shalott 


54 

the darkness than in the light. The Scriptures 
tell us so. 

“I said something of this to Father Las- 
serre, as if it were a question, and he looked 
at me. 

“ ‘Perhaps, brother,’ he said, ‘she is more 
at ease in the darkness and fears the light, and 
that she is quieter therefore when the sun 
sets.’ 

“Again I smiled to myself. What piety, 
said I, and what foolishness ! 

“The house where the three lived stood 
apart from any others. It was an old shed 
into which they had moved a week before, for 
the neighbors could no longer bear the 
woman’s screaming. And we came to it 
towards a sunset. 

“It was a heavy evening, dull and thick, 
and as we pushed down the path I saw the 
smoking mountain high on the left hand be- 
tween the tangled trees. There was a great 
silence round us, and no wind, and every leaf 
against the rosy sky was as if cut of steel. 


Father Meuron’s Tale 55 

“We saw the roof below us presently, and 
a little smoke escaped from a hole, for there 
was no chimney. 

“ ‘We will sit here a little, brother,’ said my 
friend. ‘We will not enter till sunset.’ 

“And he took out his office book and began 
to say his Matins and Lauds, sitting on a 
fallen tree-trunk by the side of the path. 

“All was very silent about us. I suffered 
terrible distractions, for I was a young man 
and excited; and though I knew it was no 
more than epilepsy that I was to see, yet 
epilepsy is not a good sight to regard. But 
I was finishing the first Nocturn when I saw 
that Father Lasserre was looking off his book. 

“We were sitting thirty yards from the 
roof of the hut, which was built in a scoop of 
the ground, so that the roof was level with the 
ground on which we sat. Below it was a little 
open space, flat, perhaps twenty yards across, 
and below that yet further was the wood 
again, and far over that was the smoke of 
the village against the sea. There was the 
mouth of a well with a bucket beside it; and 


56 A Mirror of Shalott 

by this was standing a man, a negro, very 
upright, with a vessel in his hand. 

“This fellow turned as I looked, and saw 
us there, and he dropped the vessel, and I 
could see his white teeth. Father Lasserre 
stood up and laid his finger on his lips, nodded 
once or twice, pointed to the west, where the 
sun was just above the horizon, and the fellow 
nodded to us again and stooped for his vessel. 

“He filled it from the bucket and went back 
into the house. 

“I looked at Father Lasserre and he looked 
at me. 

“ ‘In five minutes,’ he said; ‘that is the 
husband. Did you not see his wounds?’ 

“I had seen no more than his teeth, I said, 
and my friend nodded again and proceeded to 
finish his Nocturn.” 

Again Father Meuron paused dramatically. 
His ruddy face seemed a little pale in the 
candle-light, and yet he had told us nothing 
yet that could account for his apparent hor- 
ror. Plainly, something was coming soon. 


Father Meuron’s Tale 


57 

The Rector leaned back to me and whis- 
pered behind his hand in reference to what the 
Frenchman had related a few minutes before, 
that no priest was allowed to use exorcism 
without the special leave of the Bishop. I 
nodded and thanked him. 

Father Meuron flashed his eyes dreadfully 
round the circle, clasped his hands and con- 
tinued : 

“When the sun showed only a red rim 
above the sea we went down to the house. 
The path ran on high ground to the roof and 
then dipped down the edge of the cutting past 
the window to the front of the shed. 

“I looked through this window sideways as 
I went after Father Lasserre, who was carry- 
ing his bag with the book and the holy water, 
but I could see nothing but the light of the 
fire. And there was no sound. That was 
terrible to me ! 

“The door was closed as we came to it, and 
as Father Lasserre lifted his hand to knock 
there was a howl of a beast from within. 

“He knocked and looked at me. 


58 A Mirror of Shalott 

“ ‘It is but epilepsy!’ he said, and his lips 
wrinkled as he said it.” 

The priest stopped again, and smiled iron- 
ically at us all. Then he clasped his hands 
beneath his chin like a man in terror. 

“I will not tell you all that I saw,” he went 
on, “when the candle was lighted and set on 
the table, but only a little. You would not 
dream well, my friends — as I did not that 
night. 

“But the woman sat in a corner by the fire- 
place, bound with cords by her arms to the 
back of the chair and her feet to the legs 
of it. 

“Gentlemen, she was like no woman at all. 

. . . The howl of a wolf came from her lips, 
but there were words in the howl. At first I 
could not understand till she began in French, 
and then I understood. My God ! 

“The foam dripped from her mouth like 
water, and her eyes — but there! I began to 
shake when I saw them until the holy water 
was spilled on the floor, and I set it down on 
the table by the candle. There was a plate 


Father Meuron’s Tale 


59 

of meat on the table, roasted mutton, I think, 
and a loaf of bread beside it. Remember 
that, gentlemen — that mutton and bread 1 
And as I stood there I told myself, like mak- 
ing acts of faith, that it was but epilepsy, or 
at the most madness. 

“My friends, it is probable that few of you 
know the form of exorcism. It is neither in 
the Ritual or the Pontifical, and I cannot 
remember it all myself. But it began thus:” 

The Frenchman sprang up and stood with 
his back to the fire, with his face in the 
shadow. 

“Father Lasserre was here where I stand, 
in his cotta and stole, and I beside him. 
There where my chair stands was the square 
table, as near as that, with the bread and meat 
and the holy water and the candle. Beyond 
the table was the woman ; her husband stood 
beside her on the left hand, and the old mother 
was there” — he flung out a hand to the right, 
“on the floor telling her beads and weep- 
ing — but weeping. 

“When the Father was ready and had said 


6o 


A Mirror of Shalott 


a word to the others, he signed to me to lift 
the holy water again — she was quiet at the 
moment — and then he sprinkled her. 

“As he lifted his hand she raised her eyes, 
and there was a look in them of terror, as if 
at a blow, and as the drops fell she leaped 
forward in the chair, and the chair leaped 
with her. Her husband was at her and 
dragged the chair back. But my God! it 
was terrible to see him; his teeth shone as if 
he smiled, but the tears ran down his 
face. 

“Then she moaned like a child in pain. It 
was as if the holy water burned her; she lifted 
her face to her man as if she begged him to 
wipe off the drops. 

“And all the while I still told myself that it 
was the terror of her mind only at the holy 
water — that it could not be that she was pos- 
sessed by Satan — it was but madness — mad- 
ness and epilepsy ! 

“Father Lasserre went on with the prayers, 
and I said Amen, and there was a psalm — 
Deus in nomine tao salvum me fac — and then 


Father Meuron’s Tale 61 

came the first bidding to the unclean spirit to 
go out, in the name of the Mysteries of the 
Incarnation and Passion. 

“Gentlemen, I swear to you that something 
happened then, but I do not know what. A 
confusion fell on me and a kind of darkness. 
I saw nothing — it was as if I were dead.” 

The priest lifted a shaking hand to wipe 
off the sweat from his forehead. There was 
a profound silence in the room. I looked once 
at Monsignor, and he was holding his pipe 
an inch off his mouth, and his lips were slack 
and open as he stared. 

“Then when I knew where I was, Father 
Lasserre was reading out of the Gospels; how 
Our Lord gave authority to his Church to cast 
out unclean spirits, and all this while his voice 
never trembled.” 

“And the woman?” said a voice hoarsely 
from Father Brent’s chair. 

“Ah! the woman! My God! I do not 
know. I did not look at her. I stared at 
the plate on the table ; but at least she was not 
crying out now. 


62 A Mirror of Shalott 

“When the Scripture was finished Father 
Lasserre gave me the book. 

“ ‘Bah, Father!’ he said; ‘it is but epilepsy, 
is it not?’ 

“Then he beckoned me, and I went with 
him, holding the book till we were within a 
yard of the woman. But I could not hold the 
book still, it shook, it shook ” 

Father Meuron thrust out his hand. “It 
shook like that, gentlemen. 

“He took the book from me, sharply and 
angrily. ‘Go back, sir,’ he said, and he thrust 
the book into the husband’s hand. 

“ ‘There,’ he said. 

“I went back behind the table and leaned 
on it. 

“Then Father Lasserre — my God! the 
courage of this man ! — he set his hands on the 
woman’s head. She writhed up her teeth to 
bite, but he was too strong for her, and then 
he cried out from the book the second bidding 
to the unclean spirit. 

“ l Ecce crucem Domini! Behold the Cross 
of the Lord ! Flee ye adverse hosts ! 


Father Meuron’s Tale 63 

The lion of the tribe of Judah hath pre- 
vailed r 

“Gentlemen” — the Frenchman flung out his 
hands — “I who stand here tell you that some- 
thing happened. God knows what. I only 
know this, that as the woman cried out and 
scrambled with her feet on the floor, the flame 
of the candle became smoke-coloured for one 
instant. I told myself it was the dust of her 
struggling and her foul breath. . . . Yes, 
gentlemen, as you tell yourselves now. . . . 
Bah! it is but epilepsy, is it not so, sir?” 

The old Rector leaned forward with a 
deprecating hand, but the Frenchman glared 
and gesticulated; there was a murmur from 
the room, and the old priest leaned back again 
and propped his head on his hand. 

“Then there was a prayer. I heard 
OremuSy but I did not dare to look at the 
woman. I fixed my eyes so on the bread and 
meat; it was the one clean thing in that ter- 
rible room. I whispered to myself, ‘Bread 
and mutton, bread and mutton.’ I thought of 
the refectory at home — anything. You under- 


64 A Mirror of Shalott 

stand me, gentlemen — anything familiar to 
quiet myself. 

“Then there was the third exorcism. . . . ” 

I saw the Frenchman’s hands rise and fall, 
clenched, and his teeth close on his lip to stay 
its trembling. He swallowed in his throat 
once or twice. Then he went on in a very 
low, hissing voice. 

“Gentlemen, I swear to you by God Al- 
mighty that this was what I saw. I kept my 
eyes on the bread and meat. It lay there be- 
neath my eyes, and yet I saw, too, the good 
Father Lasserre lean forward to the woman 
again, and heard him begin, * Exorcizo te . . . ’ 

“And then this happened — this hap- 
pened . . . 

“The bread and the meat corrupted them- 
selves to worms before my eyes ...” 

Father Meuron dashed forward, turned 
round and dropped into his chair as the two 
English priests on either side sprang to their 
feet. 


Father Meuron’s Tale 65 

In a few minutes he was able to tell us 
that all had ended well; that the woman had 
been presently found in her right mind, after 
an incident or two that I will take leave to 
omit; and that the apparent paroxysm of 
nature that had accompanied the words of the 
third exorcism had passed away as suddenly 
as it had come. 

Then we went to night-prayers and fortified 
ourselves against the dark. 






FATHER BRENT’S TALE 



Ill 


Father Brent’s Tale 

It was universally voted on Monday that the 
Englishman should follow Father Meuron, 
and we looked with some satisfaction on his 
wholesome face and steady blue eyes as he 
took up his tale after supper. 

“Mine is a very poor story,” he began, 
“after the one we heard on Saturday and, 
what is worse, there is no explanation that I 
have ever heard that seemed to me adequate. 
Perhaps some one will supply one this even- 
ing. I feel very much like the ant in London 
whom Monsignor has such sympathy with.” 

He drew at his cigarette, smiling, and we 
settled ourselves down with looks of resolute 
science on our features. I at least was con- 
scious of wishing to wear one. 

“After my ordination to the sub-diaconate 


jo A Mirror of Shalott 

I was in England for the summer, and went 
down to stay with a friend on the Fal at the 
beginning of October. 

“My friend’s house stood on a spot of land 
running out into the estuary; there was a 
beech wood behind it and on either side. 
There was a small embankment on which the 
building actually stood, of which the sea-wall 
ran straight down on to the rocks, so that at 
high tide the water came half way up the 
stone-work. There was a large smoking-room 
looking the same way and a little paved 
path separated its windows from the low 
wall. 

“We had a series of very warm days when 
I was there, and after dinner we would sit 
outside in the dark and listen to the water 
lapping below. There was another house on 
the further side of the river about half a mile 
away, and we could see its lights sometimes. 
About three miles upstream — that is, on our 
right — lay Truro; and Falmouth, as far as I 
remember, about four miles to the left. But 
we were entirely cut off from our neighbors 


Father Brent's Tale 71 

by the beechwoods all round us, and, except 
for the house opposite, might have been clean 
out of civilization.” 

Father Brent tossed away his cigarette and 
lit another. 

He seemed a very sensible person, I 
thought, unlike the excitable Frenchman, and 
his manner of speaking was serene and prac- 
tical. 

“My friend was a widower,” he went on, 
“but had one boy, about eleven years old, who, 
I remember, was to go to school after Christ- 
mas. I asked Franklyn, my friend, why Jack 
had not gone before, and he told me, as 
parents will, that he was a peculiarly sensitive 
boy, a little hysterical at times and very ner- 
vous, but he was less so than he used to be, 
and probably, his father said, if he was 
allowed time, school would be the best thing 
for him. Up to the present, however, he had 
shrunk from sending him. 

“ ‘He has extraordinary fancies,’ he said, 
‘and thinks he sees things. The other day — ’ 
and then Jack came in, and he stopped, and I 


72 A Mirror of Shalott 

clean forgot to ask him afterward what he 
was going to say. 

“Now, if any one here has ever been to 
Cornwall they will know what a queer county 
it is. It is cram full of legends and so on. 
Every one who has ever been there seems 
to have left their mark. You get the Phoeni- 
cians in goodness knows what century; they 
came there for tin, and some of the mines 
still in work are supposed to have been opened 
by them. Cornish cream, too, seems to have 
been brought there by them, for I need not 
tell you, perhaps, that the stuff is originally 
Cornish and not Devon. Then Solomon, 
some think, sent ships there, though personally 
I believe that is nonsense; but you get some 
curious names — Marazion, for instance, 
which means the bitterness of Zion. That has 
made some believe that the Cornish are the 
lost tribes. Then you get a connection with 
both Ireland and Brittany in names, language, 
and beliefs, and so on. I could go on forever. 
They still talk of ‘going to England’ when 
they cross the border into Devonshire. 


Father Brent’s Tale 73 

“Then the people are very odd — real Celts 
— with a genius for religion and the super- 
natural generally. They believe in pixies; 
they have got a hundred saints and holy wells 
and holy trees that no one else has ever heard 
of. They have the most astonishing old 
churches. There is one convent — at Lan- 
herne, I think — where the Blessed Sacrament 
has remained with its light burning right up 
to the present. And lastly, all the people are 
furious Wesleyans. 

“So the whole place is a confusion of his- 
tory, of a sort of palimpsest, as the Father 
Rector here would tell us. A cross you find 
in the moor may be pagan, or Catholic, or 
Anglican, or most likely all three together. 
And that is what makes an explanation of 
what I am going to tell you such a difficult 
thing. 

“I did not know much about this when I 
went there on October 3d, but Franklyn 
told me a lot, and he took me about to one 
or two places here and there — to Truro to see 
the new Cathedral, to Perranzabuloe, where 


A Mirror of Shalott 


74 

there is an old mystery theatre and a church 
in the sands, and so on. And one day we 
rowed down to Falmouth. 

“The Fal is a lovely place when the tide 
is in. You find the odd combination of sea- 
weed and beech trees growing almost together. 
The trees stand with their roots in saltish 
water, and the creeks run right up into the 
woods. But it is terrible when the tide is 
out — great sheets of mud, with wreckage 
sticking up, and draggled weed, and mussels, 
and so on. 

“About the end of my first week it was 
high tide after dinner, and we sat out on the 
terrace looking across the water. We could 
hear it lapping below, and the moon was just 
coming up behind the house. I tossed over my 
cigarette end and heard it fizz in the water, 
and then I put out my hand to the box for 
another. There wasn’t one, and Franklyn 
said he would go indoors to find some. He 
thought he had some Nestors in his bedroom. 

“So Franklyn went in and I was left alone. 

“It was perfectly quiet; there was not a 


Father Brent’s Tale 75 

ripple on the water, which was about eight 
feet below me, as I got up from my chair and 
sat on the low wall. There was a sort of 
glimmer on the water from the moon behind, 
and I could see a yellow streak clean across 
the surface from the house opposite among the 
black woods. It was as warm as summer, 
too.” 

Father Brent threw his cigarette away and 
sat a little forward in his chair. I began to 
feel more interested. He was plainly inter- 
ested himself, for he clasped his hands round 
a knee and gave a quick look into our faces. 
Then he looked back again at the fire as he 
went on. 

“Then across the streak of yellow light, 
and where the moon glimmered, I saw a kind 
of black line moving. It was coming toward 
me, and there seemed to be a sort of disturb- 
ance behind. I stood up and waited, wonder- 
ing what it was. I could hear Franklyn pull- 
ing out a drawer in the bedroom overhead, 
but everything else was deadly still. 

“As I stood it came nearer swiftly; it was 


76 A Mirror of Shalott 

just a high ripple in the water, and a moment 
later the flat surface below heaved up, and 
I could hear it lapping and splashing on the 
face of the wall. 

“It was exactly as if some big ship had gone 
up the estuary. I strained my eyes out, but 
there was nothing to be seen. There was the 
glimmer of the moon on the water, the house 
lights burning half a mile away, and the black 
woods beyond. There was a beach, rocks, and 
shingle on my right, curving along toward a 
place called Meopas; and I could hear the 
wave hiss and clatter all along it as it went 
upstream. 

“Then I sat down again. 

“I cannot say I was exactly frightened; but 
1 was very much puzzled. It surely could not 
be a tidal wave ; there was certainly no ship ; 
it could not be anything swimming, for the 
wave was like the wave of a really large 
vessel. 

“In a minute or two Franklyn came down 
with the Nestors, and I told him. He laughed 
at me. Fie said it must have been a breeze, 


Father Brent’s Tale 77 

or the turn of the tide, or something. Then 
he said he had been in to look for Jack, and 
had found him in a sort of nightmare, tossing 
and moaning; he had not wakened him, he 
said, but just touched him and said a word or 
two, and the boy had turned over and gone 
to sleep. 

“But I would not let him change the sub- 
ject. I persisted it had been a really big wash 
of some kind. 

“He stared at me. 

“ Take a cigarette,* he said; ‘I found them 
at last under a hat.’ 

“But I went on at him. It had made an 
impression on me, and I was a little uncom- 
fortable. 

“ ‘It is bosh,’ he said; ‘but we will go and 
see if you like. The wall will be wet if there 
was a big wave.* 

“He fetched a lantern, and we went down 
the steps that led round the side of the em- 
bankment into the water. I went first, until 
my feet were on the last step above the water. 
He carried the lantern. 


y8 A Mirror of Shalott 

“Then I heard him exclaim. 

“ ‘You are standing in a pool/ he said. 

“I looked down and saw that it was so; 
the steps, three of them, at least, were shining 
with water in the light of the lantern. 

“I put out my hand for the lantern, held on 
to a ring by my left hand, and leaned out as 
far as I could, looking at the face of the wall. 
It was wet and dripping for at least four feet 
above the mark of the high tide. 

“I told him, and he came down and looked, 
too, and then we went up again to the house. 

“We neither of us said very much more 
that evening. The only suggestion that 
Franklyn could make was that it must have 
been a very odd kind of tidal wave. For my- 
self, I knew nothing about tidal waves; but 
I gathered from his tone that this certainly 
could not have been one. 

“We sat about half an hour more, but there 
was no sound again. 

“When we went up to bed we peeped into 
Jack’s room. He was lying perfectly quiet 
on his right side, turned away from the win- 


Father Brent’s Tale 


79 

dow, which was open, but there was a little 
frown, I thought, on his forehead, and his 
eyes seemed screwed up.” 

The priest stopped again. 

We were all very quiet. The story was not 
exciting, but it was distinctly interesting, and 
I could see the others were puzzled. Perhaps 
what impressed us most was the very matter- 
of-fact tone in which the story was told. 

The Rector put in a word during the silence. 

“How do you know it was not a tidal 
wave?” he asked. 

“It may have been, Father,” said the young 
priest; “but that is not the end.” 

He filled his lungs with smoke, blew it 
out, and went on. 

“Nothing whatever happened of any inter- 
est for the next day or two, except that Frank- 
lyn asked a boatman at Meopas whether he 
had heard anything of a wave on the Monday 
night. The man looked at us and shook his 
head, still looking at us oddly. 

“ ‘I was in bed early,’ he said. 


80 A Mirror of Shalott 

“On the Thursday afternoon Franklyn got 
a note asking him to dine in Truro, to meet 
some one who had come down from town. I 
told him to go, of course, and he went off 
in his dog-cart about half-past six. 

“Jack and I dined together at half-past 
seven, and I may say we made friends. He 
was less shy when his father was away. I 
think Franklyn laughed at him a little too 
much, hoping to cure him of his fancies. 

“The boy told me some of them, though, 
that night. I don’t remember any of them 
particularly, but I do remember the general 
effect, and I was really impressed by the sort 
of insight he seemed to have into things. He 
said some curious things about trees and their 
characters. Perhaps you remember Mac- 
donald’s ‘Phantastes.’ It was rather like 
that. He was fond of beeches, I gathered, 
and thought himself safe in them; he liked 
to climb them and to think the house was 
surrounded by them. And there was a lot of 
things like that he said. I remember, too, that 
he hated cypresses and cats and the twilight. 


Father Brent’s Tale 81 

“ ‘But I am not afraid of the dark,’ he said. 
‘I like the dark as much as the light, and I 
always sleep with my windows open and no 
curtains.’ ” 

Monsignor Maxwell nodded abruptly. I 
could see he was watching. 

“I know,” he said — “I knew another child 
like that.” 

“Well,” went on Father Brent, “the boy 
said good-night and went to bed about nine. 
I sat in the smoking-room a bit, for it had 
turned a little cold, and about ten stepped out 
on to the terrace. 

“It was perfectly still and cloudy. I forget 
whether there was a moon. At any rate, I did 
not see it. There was just the black gulf of 
water, with the line of light across it from 
the house opposite. Then I went indoors and 
shut the windows. 

“I read again for a while, and finished my 
book. I had said my office, so I looked about 
for another novel. Then I remembered there 
had been one I wanted to read in Franklyn’s 
room overhead, so I took a candle and went 


82 


A Mirror of Shalott 


up. Jack’s room was over the smoking-room, 
and his father’s was beyond it on the right, 
and there was a door between them. Both 
faced the front, remember. 

“Franklyn’s room had three windows, two 
looking on to the river and one upstream 
toward Truro, over the beach I spoke of be- 
fore. I went in there, and saw that the door 
was open between the two rooms, so I slipped 
off my shoes for fear of disturbing the boy 
and went across to the book-shelf that stood 
between the two front windows. All three 
windows were open. Franklyn was mad about 
fresh air. 

“I was bending down to look at the backs 
of the books, and had my finger on the one I 
wanted when I heard a kind of moan from 
the boy’s room. 

I stood up, startled, and it came again. 
Why, he had had a nightmare only three days 
before, I remembered. As I stood there 
wondering whether it would be kind to wake 
him, I heard another sound. 

“It was a noise that came through the side 


Father Brent’s Tale 83 

window that looked up the beach, and it was 
the noise of a breaking wave.” 

The priest made a momentary pause, and as 
he flicked the end of his cigarette I saw his 
fingers tremble very slightly. 

“I didn’t hesitate then, but went straight 
into the room next door, and as I went across 
the floor heard the boy moaning and tossing. 
It was pitch dark, and I could see nothing. I 
was thinking that tidal waves don’t come 
downstream. Then my knee struck the edge 
of the bed. 

“ 4 Jack,’ I said, ‘Jack.’ 

“There was a rustle from the bed-clothes, 
and (I should have thought) long before he 
could have awakened I heard his feet on the 
floor, and then felt him brush past me. Then 
I saw him outlined against the pale window, 
with his hands on the glass over his head. 
Then I was by him, taking care not to touch 
him. 

“All this took about five seconds, I suppose, 
from the time when I heard the wave on the 
beach. I stared out now over the boy’s head, 


84 A Mirror of Shalott 

but there was nothing in the world to be seen 
but the black water and the glimmer of the 
light across it. 

“Jack was perfectly silent, but I could see 
that he was watching. He didn’t seem to 
know I was there. 

“Then I whispered to him rather sharply. 

“ ‘What is it, Jack? What do you see?’ 

“He said nothing, and I repeated my 
question. 

“Then he answered, almost as if talking 
to himself. 

“ ‘Ships,’ he said; ‘three ships.’ 

“Now I swear there was nothing there. I 
thought it was a nightmare. 

“ ‘Nonsense,’ I said; ‘how can you see 
them? It’s too dark.’ 

“ ‘A light in each,’ he said; ‘in the bows — 
blazing!’ 

“As he said it I saw his head turning slowly 
to the left as if he was following them. Then 
there came the sound of the wave breaking on 
the stone-work just below the windows. 

‘ ‘Are you frightened?’ I said suddenly. 


Father Brent’s Tale 85 

“ ‘Yes,’ said the boy. 

“ ‘Why?’ 

“ ‘I don’t know.’ 

“Then I saw his hands come down from the 
window and cover his face, and he began 
to moan again. 

“ ‘Come back to bed,’ I said; but I daren’t 
touch him. I could see he was sleep walking. 

“Then he turned, went straight across the 
room, still making an odd sound, and I heard 
him climb into bed. 

“I covered him up and went out.” 

Father Brent stopped again. He had rather 
a curious look in his face, and I saw that his 
cigarette had gone out. None of us spoke or 
moved. 

Then he went on again abruptly. 

“Well, you know, I didn’t know I was 
frightened exactly until I came out on to the 
landing. There was a tall glass there on the 
right hand of the staircase, and just as I came 
opposite I thought I heard the hiss of the 
wave again, and I nearly screamed. It was 
only the wheels of Franklyn’s dog-cart com- 


86 


A Mirror of Shalott 


ing up the drive, but as I looked in the glass 
I saw that my face was like paper. . . . We 
had a long talk about the Phoenicians that 
evening. Franklyn looked them out in the 
Encyclopaedia ; but there was nothing particu- 
larly interesting. 

“Well, that’s all. Give me a match, 
Father. This beastly thing’s gone out. It’s 
a spaghetto.” 

We had no theories to suggest. Monsignor 
alone was temerarious enough to remark that 
the story was an excellent illustration of his 


own views. 


THE FATHER RECTOR’S TALE 




IV 


The Father Rector’s Tale 

The Father-Rector of San Filippo was an old 
man, a Canadian by birth, who had been edu- 
cated in England, but he had worked in many 
parts of the world since receiving the priest- 
hood nearly fifty years ago, and for my part 
I certainly expected that he would have many 
experiences to relate. 

At first, however, he entirely refused to tell 
a story. He said he had had an uneventful 
life, that he could not compete with the tales 
he had heard. But persuasion proved too 
strong, and on going in to see him on another 
matter one morning I found him at his tin 
despatch-box with a diary in his hand. 

“I have found something that I think may 
do,” he said, “if no one else has promised for 
this evening. It is really the only thing ap- 
proaching the preternatural I have ever ex- 
perienced.” 


90 A Mirror of Shalott 

I congratulated him and ourselves; and the 
same evening after supper he told his story, 
with the diary beside him, to which he referred 
now and then. (I shall omit his irrelevancies, 
of which there were a good many.) 

“This happened to me,” he said, “nearly 
thirty years ago. I had been twenty years a 
priest, and was working in a town mission in 
the south of England. I made the acquaint- 
ance of a Catholic family who had a large 
country house about ten miles away. They 
were not very fervent people, but they had a 
chapel in the house, where I would say mass 
sometimes on Sundays, when I could get away 
from my own church on Saturday night. 

“On one of these occasions I met for the 
first time an artist, whose name you would all 
know if I mentioned it, but it will be conven- 
ient to call him Mr. Farquharson. He made 
an extremely unpleasant impression on me, and 
yet there was no reason for it that I could see. 
He was a big man, palish, with curling brown 
hair. He was always very well dressed, with 


The Father Rector’s Tale 91 

a suspicion of scent about him; he talked ex- 
tremely wittily and would say the most sur- 
prising things that were at once brilliant and 
dangerous ; and yet in his talk he never trans- 
gressed good manners. In fact, he was very 
cordial always to me; he seemed to go out of 
his way to be courteous and friendly, and yet 
I could not bear the fellow. However, I tried 
to conceal that, and with some success, as you 
will see. 

“I was astonished that he asked me no ques- 
tions about our beliefs or practices. Such 
people generally do, you know ; and they pro- 
fess to admire our worship and its dignity. 
In the evening he played and sang magnifi- 
cently — very touching and pathetic songs, as 
a rule. 

“On the following morning he attended 
mass, but I did not think much of that. 
Guests generally do, I have found, in Catholic 
houses. Then I went off in the afternoon back 
to my mission. 

“I suppose it was six weeks before I met 
him again, and then it was at the same place. 


A Mirror of Shalott 


92 

My hostess gave me tea alone, for I arrived 
late, and as we sat in the hall, told me that 
Mr. Farquharson was there again. Then she 
added, to my surprise, that he had expressed 
a great liking for me, and had come down 
from town partly with the hope of meeting 
me. She went on talking about him for a 
while; told me that three of his pictures had 
been taken again by the French Salon, and at 
last told me that he had been baptized and edu- 
cated as a Catholic, but had for many years 
ceased to practise his religion. She had only 
learned this recently. 

“Well, that explained a good deal; and I 
was a good deal taken aback. I did not quite 
know how to act. But she talked on about 
him a little, and I became sorry for the man 
and determined that I would make no differ- 
ence in my behavior toward him. From what 
she said, I gathered that it might be in my 
power to win him back. He had everything 
against him, she told me. 

“Now, let me tell you a word about his 
pictures. I had seen them here and there, as 


The Father Rector’s Tale 93 

well as reproductions of them, as all the world 
had at that time, and they were very remark- 
able. They were on extraordinarily simple 
and innocent subjects, and often religious — a 
child going to first Communion; a knight rid- 
ing on a lonely road; a boy warming his hands 
at the fire ; a woman praying. There was not 
a line or a color in them that any one could 
dislike, and yet — yet they were corrupt. I 
know nothing about art; but it needed no art 
to see that thesewere corrupt. I did not under- 
stand it then, and I do not now; but — well, 
there it is. I cannot describe their effect on 
me; but I know that many others felt the 
same, and I believe that kind of painting is not 
uncommon in the French school.” 

The priest paused a moment. 

“As I went down the long passage to the 
smoking-room I declare that I was not think- 
ing of this side of the man. I was only won- 
dering whether I could do anything, but the 
moment I came in and found him standing 
alone on the hearth-rug all this leaped back 
into my mind. 


94 A Mirror of Shalott 

“His personality was exactly like his own 
pictures. There was nothing that one could 
point to in his face and say that it revealed 
his character. It did not. It was a clean- 
shaven, clever face, strong and artistic; his 
hand as he took mine was firm and slender 
and strong, too. And yet — yet my flesh crept 
at him. It seemed to me he was a kind of 
devil. 

“Again I did my utmost to hide all this as 
we sat and talked that evening till the dressing 
gong rang; and again I succeeded, but it was 
a sore effort. Once when he put his hand on 
my arm I nearly jerked it off, so great was 
the horror it gave me. 

“I did not sit near him at dinner ; there were 
several people dining there that night, but 
our host was unwell and went to bed early, 
and this man and myself, after he had played 
and sung an hour or so in the drawing-room, 
talked till late in the smoking-room, and all 
the while the horror grew; I have never felt 
anything like it. I am generally fairly placid; 
but it was all I could do to keep quiet. I even 


The Father Rector’s Tale 95 

wondered once or twice whether it was not 
my duty to tell him plainly what I felt, to- — 
to — well, really, this sounds absurd — but to 
curse him as an unclean and corrupt creature 
who had lost faith and grace and everything, 
and was on the very brink of eternal fire.” 

The old man’s voice rang with emotion. I 
had never seen him so much moved, and was 
astonished at his vehemence. 

“Well, thank God, I did not! 

“At last it came out that I knew about 
his having been a Catholic. I did not tell him 
where I had learned it, but perhaps he sus- 
pected. Of course, though, I might have 
learned it in a hundred ways. 

“He seemed very much surprised — not at 
my knowing, but at my treating him as I had. 
It seemed that he had met with unpleasantness 
more than once at the hands of priests who 
knew. 

“Well, to cut it short, before I went away 
next day he asked me to call upon him some 
time at his house in London, and he asked 
me in such a way that I knew he meant it.” 


96 A Mirror of Shalott 

The priest stopped and referred to his 
diary. Then he went on. 

“It was in the following May, six months 
later, that I fulfilled my promise. 

“It may have been association, and what I 
suspected of the man, but the house almost 
terrified me by its beauty and its simplicity and 
its air of corruption. And yet there was noth- 
ing to account for it. There was not a picture 
in it, as far as I could see, that had anything 
in it to which even a priest could object. 
There was a long gallery leading from the 
front door, floored, ceiled, and walled with 
oak in little panels, with pictures in each along 
the two sides, chiefly, I should suppose now, 
of that same French school of which I have 
spoken. There was an exquisite crucifix at the 
end, and yet, in some strange way, even that 
seemed to be tainted. I felt, I suppose, in 
the manner that Father Stein described to us 
when he mentioned Benares; and yet there, I 
have heard, the pictures and carving corre- 
spond with the sensation, and here they did 
not. 


The Father Rector's Tale 97 

“He received me in his studio at the end 
of the passage. There was a great painting 
on an easel, on which he was working, a 
painting of Our Lady going to the well at 
Nazareth — most exquisite and yet terrible. I 
could hardly keep my eyes off it. It was 
nearly finished, he told me. And there was 
his grand piano against the wall. 

“Well, we sat and talked; and before I left 
that evening I knew everything. He did not 
tell me in confession, and the story became 
notorious after his death five years later; but 
yet I can tell you no more now than that all 
I had felt about him was justified by what I 
heard. Part of what the world did not hear 
would not have seemed important to any but 
a priest; it was just the history of his own 
soul, apart from his deeds, the history of his 
wanton contempt of light and warnings. And 
I heard more besides, too, that I cannot bear 
to think of even now.” 

The priest stooped again; and I could see 
his lips were trembling with emotion. We 
were all very quiet ourselves ; the effect on my 


98 A Mirror of Shalott 

mind, at least, was extraordinary. Presently 
he went on: 

“Before I left I persuaded him to go to con- 
fession. The man had not really lost faith 
for a moment, so far as I could gather. I 
learned from details that I cannot even hint at 
that he had known it all to be true, pitilessly 
clear in his worst moments. Grace had been 
prevailing especially of late, and he was sick 
of his life. Of course, he had tried to stifle 
conscience, but by the mercy of God he had 
failed. I cannot imagine why, except that 
there is no end to the loving kindness of God; 
but I have known many souls, not half so 
evil as his, lose their faith and their whole 
spiritual sense beyond all human hope of 
recovery.” 

The priest stopped again, turned over sev- 
eral pages of his diary, and as he did so I 
saw him stop once or twice and read silently 
to himself, his lips moving. 

“I must miss out a great deal here. He 
did not come to confession to me, but to a 
Carthusian, after a retreat. I need not go into 


The Father Rector’s Tale 99 

all the details of that, so far as I knew them, 
and I will skip another six months. 

“During that time I wrote to him more 
than once, and just got a line or two back. 
Then I was ordered abroad, and when we 
touched at Brindisi I received a letter from 
him.” 

The priest lifted his diary again near his 
eyes. 

“Here is one sentence,” he said; “listen. 

“ ‘I know I am forgiven; but the punish- 
ment is driving me mad. What would you 
say if you knew all! I cannot write it. I 
wonder if we shall meet again. I wonder 
what you would say.’ 

“There was more that I cannot read; but 
it offers no explanation of this sentence. I 
wrote, of course, at once, and said I would 
be home in four months, and asked for an 
explanation. I did not hear again, though I 
wrote three or four times; and after three 
or four months in Malta I went back to 
England. 

“My first visit was to Mr. Farquharson, 


LOFC, 


ioo A Mirror of Shalott 

when I had written to prepare him for my 
coming.” 

The old man stopped again, and I could 
see he was finding it more and more difficult 
to speak. He looked at the diary again once 
or twice, but I could see that it was only to 
give himself time to recover. Then he low- 
ered it once more, leaned his elbow on the 
chair arm and his head on his hand, and went 
on in a slow voice full of effort. 

“The first change was in the gallery; its 
pictures were all gone, and in their place hung 
others — engravings and portraits of no inter- 
est or beauty that I could see. The crucifix 
was gone, and in its place stood another very 
simple and common — a plaster figure on a 
black cross. It was all very commonplace — 
such a room as you might see in any house. 
The man took me through as before, but in- 
stead of opening the studio door as I expected, 
turned up the stairs on the right, and I fol- 
lowed. He stopped at a little door at the end 
of a short passage, tapped, and threw it open. 
He announced my name and I went in.” 


The Father Rector’s Tale ioi 


He paused once more. 

“There was a Japanese screen in front of 
me, and I went round it, wondering what I 
should find. I caught a sight of a simple, com- 
monplace room with a window looking out on 
my left, and then I saw an old man sitting in a 
high chair over the fire, on which boiled a 
saucepan, warming his hands, with a rug over 
his knees. His face was turned to me, but it 
was that of a stranger. 

“There was a table between us, and I stood 
hesitating, on the point of apologizing, and 
the old man looked at me, smiling. 

“ ‘You do not know me/ he said. 

“Then I saw he bore an odd sort of resem- 
blance to Mr. Farquharson; and I supposed it 
was his father. That would account for the 
mistake, too, I thought in a moment. My 
letter must have been delivered to him instead. 

“ ‘I came to see Mr. Farquharson/ I said. 
‘I beg your pardon if — ’ Then he interrupted 
me. Well, you will guess — this was the man 
I had come to see. 

“It took a minute or two before I could 


102 A Mirror of Shalott 

realize it. I swear to you that the man 
looked not ten, nor twenty, nor thirty, but 
fifty years older. 

“I went and took his hand and sat down, 
but I could not say a word. Then he told me 
his story; and as he told it I watched him. I 
looked at his face; it had been full and gen- 
erous in its lines, now the skin was drawn 
tightly over his cheeks and great square jaw. 
His hair, so much of it as escaped under his 
stuff cap, was snow white and like silk. His 
hands, stretched over the fire, were gnarled 
and veined and tremulous. And all this had 
come to him in less than one year. 

“Well, this was his story: His health had 
failed abruptly within a month of my last 
sight of him. He had noticed weakness com- 
ing on soon after his reconciliation, and the 
failure of his powers had increased like 
lightning. 

“I will tell you what first flashed into my 
mind — that it was merely a sudden, unprece- 
dented breakdown that had first given room 
for grace to reassert itself, and had then nor- 


The Father Rector’s Tale 103 

mally gone forward. The life he had led — 
well, you understand. 

“Then he told me a few more facts that 
soon put that thought out of my head. All 
his artistic powers had gone, too. He gave 
me an example. 

“ ‘Look round this room,’ he said in his 
old man’s voice, ‘and tell me frankly what you 
think of it — the pictures, the furniture.’ 

“I did so, and was astonished at their ugli- 
ness. There were a couple of hideous oleo- 
graphs on the wall opposite the window ; per- 
haps you know them — of the tombs of our 
Lord and His Blessed Mother, with yellow 
candlesticks standing upon them. There were 
green baize curtains by the windows; an Ax- 
minster carpet of vivid colors on the floor; a 
mahogany table in the centre with a breviary 
upon it and a portfolio open. It was the kind 
of a room that you might find in twenty houses 
in a row on the outskirts of a colliery town. 

“I supposed, of course, that he had fur- 
nished his room like this out of a morbid kind 
of mortification, and I hinted this to him. 


104 A Mirror of Shalott 

“He smiled again, but he looked puzzled. 

“ ‘No,’ he said; ‘indeed not. Then you do 
think them ugly, too? Well, well; it is that 
I do not care. Will you believe me when I 
tell you that? There is no asceticism in the 
matter. Those pictures seem to me as good 
as any others. I have sold the others.’ 

“ ‘But you know they are not good,’ I said. 

“ ‘My friends tell me so, and I remember 
I used to think so once, too. But that has all 
gone. Besides, I like them.’ 

“He turned in his chair and opened the 
portfolio that lay by him. 

“ ‘Look,’ he said, and pushed it over to me, 
watching my face as I took it. 

“It was full of sheets of paper scrawled 
with such pictures as a stupid child might 
draw. There was not the faintest trace of 
any power in them. Here is one of them that 
he gave me.” (He drew out a paper from 
his diary and held it up.) “I will show it 
you presently. 

“As I looked at them it suddenly struck me 
that all this was an elaborate pose. I sup- 


The Father Rector’s Tale 105 

pose I showed the thought in the way I 
glanced up at him. At any rate, he knew it. 
He smiled again pitifully. 

“ ‘No,’ he said; ‘it is not a pose. I have 
posed for forty years, but I have forgotten 
how to do it now. It does not seem to me 
worth while, either.’ 

“ ‘Are you happy?’ I asked. 

“ ‘Oh, I suppose so,’ he said. 

“I sat there bewildered. 

“ ‘And music?’ I said. 

“He made a little gesture with his old 
hands. 

“ ‘Tell Jackson to let you see the piano in the 
studio,’ he said, ‘as you go downstairs. And 
you might look at the picture of Our Lady 
at Nazareth at the same time. You will see 
how I tried to go on with it. My friends tell 
me it is all wrong, and asked me to stop. I 
supposed they knew, so I have stopped.’ 

“Well, we talked a while, and I learned 
how all was with him. He believed with his 
whole being, and that was all. He received 
the sacraments once a week, and he was happy 


106 A Mirror of Shalott 

in a subdued kind of way. There was no 
ecstasy of happiness; there was no torment 
from the imagination, such as is usual in these 
cases of conversion. He had suffered agonies 
at first from the loss of his powers, as he 
realized that his natural perceptions were 
gone, and it was then that he had written to 

_ _ n 

me. 

The Rector stopped again a moment, 
fingering the paper. 

“I saw his doctor, of course, and ” 

Monsignor broke in. I noticed that he 
had been listening intently. 

u The piano and the picture,” he said. 
“Ah, yes. Well, the piano was just a box 
of strings; many of the notes were broken, 
and the other wires were hopelessly out of 
tune. They were broken, the man told me, 
within a week or two of his master’s change 
of life. He spoke quite frankly to me. Mr. 
Farquharson had tried to play, it seemed, and 
could scarcely play a right note, and in a 
passion of anger it was supposed he had 
smashed the notes with his fists. And the 


The Father Rector’s Tale 107 

picture — well, it was a miserable sight. There 
was a tawdry sort of crown, ill drawn and ill 
colored, on her head, and a terrible sort of 
cherub was painted all across the sky. Some 
one else, it seemed, had tried to paint these 
out, which increased the confusion. 

“The doctor told me it was softening of the 
brain. I asked him honestly to tell me 
whether he had ever come across such a case 
before, and he confessed he had not. 

“It took me a week or two, and another 
conversation with Mr. Farquharson, before I 
understood what it all meant. It was not 
natural, the doctor assured me, and it could 
scarcely be that Almighty God had arbitrarily 
inflicted such a punishment. And then I 
thought I understood, as no doubt you have 
all done before this.” 

The old priest’s voice had an air of finality 
in his last sentence, and he handed the scrap 
of paper to Father Bianchi, who sat beside 
him. 

“One moment, Father,” I said; “I do not 
understand at all.” 


108 A Mirror of Shalott 

The priest turned to me, and his eyes were 
full of tears. 

“Why, this is my reading of it,” he said; 
“the man had been one mass of corruption, 
body, mind, and soul. Every power of his 
had been nutured on evil for thirty years. 
Then he made his effort and the evil was with- 
drawn, and — and — well, he fell to pieces. 
The only thing that was alive in him was the 
life of grace. There was nothing else to live. 
He died, too, three months later, tolerably 
happy, I think.” 

As I pondered this the paper was handed 
to me, and I looked at it in bewildered silence. 
It was a head grotesque in its feebleness and 
lack of art. There was a crown of thorns 
about it, and an inscription in a child’s hand- 
writing below : 

Deus in virtute tua salvum me fac! 

Then my own eyes were full of tears, too. 


FATHER GIRDLESTONE’S TALE 





































V 


I 

Father Girdlestone* s Tale 

“I have found another raconteur for this 
evening,” said Monsignor as he came in to 
dinner on the following day, “but he cannot 
be here till late.” 

The Rector looked up questioningly. 

“Yes, I know,” said Monsignor unfolding 
his napkin. “But it is a long story; it will 
take at least two nights; but — but it is a 
beauty, reverend Fathers.” 

We murmured appreciatively. 

“I heard him tell it twenty years ago,” pro- 
ceeded the priest. “I was a boy then. . . . 
I had a bad night after it, I remember. But 
the first part is rather dull.” 

The appreciative murmur was even louder. 

“Well, then, is that settled?” 

We assented. 


The entrance of Father Girdlestone that 


1 1 2 A Mirror of Shalott 

evening was somewhat dramatic. We were 
all talking briskly together in our wide semi- 
circle when Father Brent uttered an exclama- 
tion. The talk died, and I, turning from my 
corner, saw a very little old man standing 
behind the Rector’s chair, motionless and 
smiling. He was one of the smallest men, not 
actually deformed, I have ever seen; small 
and very delicate looking. His white, silky 
hair was thin on his head, but abundant over 
his ears; his face was like thin ivory, trans- 
parent and exquisitely carved; his eyes so 
overhung that I could see nothing of them 
but two patches of shadow with a diamond 
in each. And there he stood, as if material- 
ized from air, beneath the folds of his ample 
Roman cloak. 

“I beg your pardon, reverend Fathers,” he 
said, and his voice was as delicate as his com- 
plexion. “I tapped, but no one seemed to hear 
me.” 

The Rector bustled up from his chair. 

“My dear Father,” he began; but Mon- 
signor interrupted. 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 113 

“A most appropriate entry, Father Girdle- 
stone,” he said. “You could not have made 
a more effective beginning.” He waved 
his hand — “Father Girdlestone,” he said, 
introducing us. “And this is the Father 
Rector.” 

We were all standing up by now, looking at 
this tranquil little old man, and we bowed and 
murmured deferentially. There was some- 
thing very dignified about this priest. 

Then chairs were re-sorted. I got my own 
again, moving it against the wall, watching 
him as with almost foreign manners he bowed 
this way and that before seating himself in 
the centre. Then we all sat down ; and after 
a word or two of talk he began. 

“I understand from my friend, Monsignor 
Maxwell,” he said, “that you gentlemen 
would like to hear my story. I am very will- 
ing indeed to tell it. No possible harm can 
follow from it, and, perhaps, even good may 
be the result, if ever any one who shall hear 
it is afflicted with the same visitation. But it 


1 14 A Mirror of Shalott 

is a long story, gentlemen, and I am an old 
man and shall no doubt make it longer.” 

He was reassured, I think, by our faces, 
and without further apology he began his tale. 

“My first and only curacy,” he said, “was 
in the town of Cardiff. I was sent there after 
my ordination, four years before the re-estab- 
lishment of the hierarchy in England; and 
the year after our bishops were given us I was 
sent to found a mission inland. Now, gentle- 
men, I shall not tell you where that was, 
though no doubt you will be able to find out if 
you desire to do so. It will be enough now 
to describe to you the circumstances and the 
place. 

“It was a little colliery village to which I 
went — we will call it Abergwyll. There was 
a number of Irish Catholics there, who are, 
as you know, the most devout persons on the 
face of the earth. They begged very hard 
for a priest, and I expect, gentlemen, there 
was collusion in the matter. The Bishop’s 
chaplain had Irish blood in his veins.” 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 115 

He smiled pleasantly. 

“At least, there I was sent, with a stipend 
of £40 and a letter of commendation and per- 
mission to beg. My parishioners set at my 
disposal a four-roomed house standing at the 
outskirts of the village, removed, I should say, 
forty yards from any other house. Behind 
my house was open country — a kind of moor 
— stretching over hill and dale to the moun- 
tains of Brecon. The colliery itself stood on 
the further side of the village and beneath 
it, half a mile away. Of the four rooms, I 
used one as a chapel on the ground floor ; that 
at the back was the kitchen. I slept over the 
kitchen, and used as my sitting-room and 
sacristy that over the chapel. 

“I will not detain you with my first experi- 
ences. They were most edifying. I have 
never seen such devotion and fervor. My 
own devotion was sensibly increased by all 
that I heard and saw. The shepherd in this 
case, at least, was taught many lessons by his 
sheep. 

“Now, the first ambition of every young 


1 1 6 A Mirror of Shalott 

priest who is worthy of the name is to build 
a great church to God’s glory. Even I had 
this ambition. I had not a great deal of work 
to do — in fact, I may say that there was really 
nothing to do except to say mass and office 
and to conduct evening devotions, as I did 
every night in the chapel; and that little 
chapel, gentlemen, was full every night. 

“Much of the day, therefore, I spent in 
walking and dreaming. In the morning, as 
summer came on, I was accustomed to take 
my office-book out with me and to go over the 
moor, perhaps three hundred yards away, to 
a little ravine where a stream went down into 
the valley. There I would sit in the shade 
of a rock, listening to the voice of the water 
and saying my prayers. When I had done I 
would lie on my back, looking up at the rock 
and the sky, and dreaming — well, as every 
young priest dreams. 

“I do not know when it was that I first 
understood what God intended me to do. I 
began by thinking of a great town where my 
church should stand — Cardiff, or perhaps 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 117 

Newport. I even arranged its architecture; 
it was to be a primitive Roman basilica, large 
and plain, with a great apse with a Christ in 
glory frescoed there. On His right were to 
be the redeemed, on His left the lost — no, 
more than that, with a pair of great angels be- 
hind the throne. That, gentlemen, without text 
or comment, has always seemed to me the 
greatest sermon on earth.” 

He paused and looked round at us an in- 
stant. 

“Well, gentlemen, you know what day- 
dreaming is. I even occupied my time — I, 
with £40 a year and twenty colliery parishion- 
ers — in drawing designs for my church. And 
then suddenly on a summer’s day a new 
thought came to me, and something else 
with it. 

“I was lying on my back on the short grass, 
looking up at the rock against the sky, when 
the thought came to me that here my basilica 
should stand. The rock should be levelled, I 
thought, to a platform. The foundations 
should be blasted out, and here my church 


1 1 8 A Mirror of Shalott 


should stand, alone on the moor, to witness 
that the demands of God’s glory were dom- 
inant and sovereign. . . .Yes, gentlemen, 
most unpractical and fantastic. . . . 

“I sat up at the thought. It came to me as 
a revelation. In that instant I no more 
doubted that it should be accomplished than 
that God reigned. I looked below me at the 
stream. Yes; I saw it all; there the stream 
should dash and chatter; all about me were 
the solemn moors; and here on the rock be- 
hind me should stand my basilica, and the 
Blessed Sacrament within it. 

“I was just about to turn to look at my 
rock again when something happened.” 

The old man stopped dead. 

“Now, gentlemen, I do not know if I can 
make this plain to you. What happened to 
me happened only interiorly; but it was as real 
as a thunderclap or a vision. It was this : It 
was an absolute conviction that something was 
looking at me from over the top of the rock 
behind. 

“My first thought was that I had heard a 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 119 

sound. Then simultaneously the horn blew 
from the colliery a mile away, and — and” — 
he hesitated — “I was aware that this external 
sound was on a different plane. I do not know 
how to make that plain to you; but it was as 
when one’s imagination is full of some remem- 
bered melody and a real sound breaks upon it. 
The horn ceased and there was silence again. 
Then after a moment my interior experience 
ceased, too, as abruptly as it had begun. 

“All that time, three or four seconds, at 
least, I had sat still and rigid without turning 
my head. I must describe to you as well as 
I can my sensations during those seconds. You 
must forgive me for being verbose about it. 

“Those who have attained to Saint Teresa’s 
Prayer of Quiet tell us that it is a new world 
into which they consciously penetrate — a 
world with objects, sounds and all the rest — 
but that these are almost incommunicable even 
to the brain of the percipient. No adequate 
image or analogy can be found for those in- 
tentions; still less can they be expressed in 
words. I suppose that this is an illustration 


120 A Mirror of Shalott 

of the truth that the Kingdom of Heaven is 
within us. . . . 

“Well, gentlemen, I was aware during 
those seconds that I was in that state that I 
had, as it were, slipped through the crust of 
the world of sense and even of intellectual 
thought. What I perceived of a person 
watching me was not on this plane at all. It 
was not One who in any sense had a human 
existence, who had ever had one, or ever would. 
It did not in the least resemble, therefore, an 
apparition of the dead. But the perception of 
this was gradual, as also of the nature of the 
visitation, of which I shall speak in a moment. 
At first there was only the act of the entrance 
into my neighborhood, as of one entering a 
room; then gradually, although with great 
speed, I perceived the nature of the visitation 
and the character of the visitant. 

“And again that sound, if I may call it so, 
was not that of a material object; it was not 
a cry or a word or a movement. Yet it was 
in some way the expression of a personality. 
Shall we say” — he stopped again — “well, do 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 121 

you know what the sound of a flame is? 
There is not exactly a vibration — not a note — 
not a roar nor a — nor anything. Well, I do 
not think I can express it more clearly than 
by saying that that is the nearest analogy I 
can name in the world of sense. It was as the 
note of a vivid and intense personality, and 
it continued during that period and died noise- 
lessly at the end like a sudden singing in the 
ears. 

“Now, I have taken the sense of hearing as 
the one which best expresses my experience; 
but it was not really hearing any more than 
seeing or tasting or feeling. It seemed to me 
that if it was true, as scientists tell us, that we 
have but one common sense expressing itself 
in five ways, that common sense was indirectly 
affected in this intense and piercing way only 
beneath its own plane, if I may say so. 

“And one thing more. Although this pres- 
ence seemed to bring on me a kind of paraly- 
sis, so that I did not move or even objectively 
think, yet beneath, my soul was aware of a 
repulsion and a hatred that I am entirely un- 


122 


A Mirror of Shalott 


able to describe. As God is Absolute Good- 
ness and Love, so this presence affected me 
with precisely the opposite instinct. . . . 

There, I must leave it at that. I must just ask 
you to take my word for it that there was pres- 
ent to me during those few seconds a kind of 
distilled quintessence of all that is not God, 
under the aspect of a person, and of a person, 
as I have said, quite apart from human exist- 
ence.” 

The priest’s quiet little voice, speaking now 
even lower than when he began, yet perfectly 
articulate and unmoved, ceased, and I leaned 
back in my chair, drawing a long breath. 
Again I will speak only for myself, and say 
that he had seemed to be putting into words 
for the first time in my experience something 
which I had never undergone and which yet I 
recognized as simply true. I doubted it no 
more than if he had described a walk he had 
taken in Rome. 

He looked round at the motionless faces; 
then he lifted one knee on to the other and 
began to nurse it. 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 123 

“Well, gentlemen, it would be about ten 
minutes, I suppose, before I stood up. I 
looked over my shoulder before that, yet 
knowing I should see nothing; and, indeed, 
there was nothing to see but the old rock and 
the sky and the silhouette of the grasses 
against it. I continued to sit there, because I 
felt too tired to move. It was a kind of com- 
plete languor that took possession of me. I 
had no actual fear now ; I knew that the thing, 
whatever it was, had withdrawn itself — it had 
whisked, if I may say so, out of my range 
as swift as a lizard who knows himself ob- 
served. I knew perfectly well that it would 
approach more cautiously if it should ever 
approach me again, but that for the present I 
need not fear. 

“There was another curious detail, too. I 
had — and have now — no reflex horror when 
I think of it. You see that it had not taken 
place before my senses; not even, indeed, be- 
fore my intellect or my conscious powers. It 
was completely in the transcendent sphere, 
and, therefore — at least I can only suppose 


124 A Mirror of Shalott 

that this is the reason — therefore when the 
door was shut and I was returned to my 
human existence, I had no associations or 
even direct memory of the horror. I knew that 
it had taken place, but my objective imagina- 
tion was not tarnished by it. Later it was 
different; but I shall come to that presently. 
There was the languor, taking its rise, I sup- 
pose, in the very essence of my being where 
I had experienced and resisted the assault, and 
this languor communicated itself to my mind, 
just as weariness of mind communicates itself 
to the body. Then, after a little rest, I got 
up and went home. It was curious also that 
after dining the languor had risen even 
higher; I felt intolerably tired, and slept 
dreamlessly in my chair the whole afternoon. 

“That, then, gentlemen, was the beginning 
of my visitation. It was only the beginning, 
and to some degree differed from its continua- 
tion. It seemed to me later when I looked 
back upon it that the personality had changed 
its assault somewhat, that at first it had rushed 
upon me unthinking, impelled by its own pas- 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 125 

sion, and that afterward it laid siege with skill 
and deliberation. . . . But are you sure, 
gentlemen, that I am not boring you with all 
this?” 

Monsignor answered for us. I noticed 
that he cleared his throat slightly before 
speaking. 

“No, no, Father. . . . Please go on.” 

The old priest paused a moment as if to 
recollect himself, then still nursing his knee, 
he began again in his quiet little voice. 

“I do not know exactly how long it was 
before I began to understand my danger ; but 
I think the thought first occurred to me one 
day during my meditation. Soon after my 
ordination I had read Mme. Guyon’s book 
on prayer in order to understand exactly what 
it was that had been condemned in Quietism, 
and I suppose it had affected me to some ex- 
tent. It is indeed a very subtle book and 
extremely beautiful. At any rate, I had long 
been accustomed to close my meditation with 
what she calls the ‘awful silence’ in the Pres- 
ence of God. I do not think that, normally 


126 


A Mirror of Shalott 


speaking, there is any harm in this; on the con- 
trary, for active-minded people in danger of 
intellectualism I think it a very useful exercise. 
Well, it was one day I should think within a 
fortnight of my experience by the rock that 
I first understood that for me there was 
danger. I was in my little chapel before the 
Blessed Sacrament. Everything was quite 
quiet; the men were at work and the women in 
their houses; it was a hot, sunny morning, I 
remember, breathlessly still. I had finished 
my formal meditation and was sitting back in 
my chair. 

“You all know, gentlemen, of course, the 
way in which one can approach the Silence 
before God. Of course, the simplest can do 
it if they will take pains.” 

Monsignor Maxwell interrupted, still in 
that slightly strained voice in which he had 
spoken just now. 

“Please describe it,” he said. 

The priest looked up deprecatingly. 

“Well, then, first I had withdrawn myself 
from the world of sense. That takes, as you 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 127 

know, sometimes several minutes; it is neces- 
sary to sink down in thought in such a manner 
that sounds no longer distract the attention, 
even though they may be heard and even con- 
sidered and reflected upon. Then the second 
step is to leave behind all intellectual consider- 
ations and images, and that, too, sometimes is 
troublesome, especially if the mind is naturally 
active. Well, this day I found an extraor- 
dinary ease in both the acts.” 

Father Brent leaned forward. 

“May I interrupt, Father? But I am not 
sure that I understand.” 

The old man pursed his lips. Then he 
glanced up at the rest of us almost apolo- 
getically. 

“Well, it is this, my dear Father. . . . 
How can I put it? ... It is the introversion 
of the soul. Instead of considering this object 
or that, either by looking upon it or reflecting 
upon it, the soul turns inward. There are the 
two distinct planes on which many men, 
especially those who pay little or no attention 
to the soul, live continually. Either they con- 


128 


A Mirror of Shalott 


tinually seek distractions — they cannot be de- 
vout except in company or before an image — 
or else — as, indeed, many do who have even 
the gift of recollection — they dwell entirely 
upon considerations and mental images. Now 
the true introversion is beneath all this. The 
soul sinks, turning inward upon itself . . . 
there are no actual considerations at all ; these 
become in their turn as much distractions to 
the energy of the soul as external objects to 
the energy of the mind. ... Is that clearer, 
my dear Father?” 

It was all said with a kind of patient and 
apologetic simplicity. Father Brent nodded 
pensively two or three times, and dropped his 
chin again upon his hand. The old priest 
went on. 

“Well, gentlemen, as I said just now, on 
this morning I came into the Silence without 
an effort. First the sensible world dropped 
away; I heard a woman open and shut her 
door fifty yards away down the street, but it 
was no more than a sound. Then almost im- 
mediately the world of images and considera- 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 129 

tions went past me and vanished, and I found 
myself in perfect stillness. 

“For an instant it seemed to me that all was 
well. There was that strange tranquillity all 
about me. ... I cannot put it into words 
except by saying, as all do who practise that 
method, that it is a living tranquillity full of 
a very vital energy. This is not, of course, 
that to which contemplatives penetrate; St. 
John of the Cross makes that very plain; it is 
no more than that in which we ought always 
to live. It is that Kingdom of God within of 
which our Blessed Lord tells us, but it is not 
the Palace itself. . . . However, as I have 
said, when one has but learned the way there 
— and the difficulty of doing so lies only in its 
extreme and singular simplicity — when one 
has learned the way there it is full of pleasure 
and consolation. 

“I remained there, as my manner was, 
drawing a long breath or two, as one is 
obliged to do. I do not know why — and at 
first all seemed well. There was that peace 
about me which may be described under the 


130 A Mirror of Shalott 

image of any one of the five senses. I prefer 
to speak of it now as under the image of light 
— a very radiant, mellow light full of warmth 
and sweetness. There was, too, just at first, 
that sense of profound abasement and adora- 
tion which is so familiar. . . . As I said, 
gentlemen, I do not, of course, for an instant 
pretend to the gift of pure contemplation ; that 
is something far beyond. 

“Then all in instant that sense of adoration 
vanished. 

“Now, it was not that I had risen back 
again to meditation; there were no images 
before my attention, no reflections of any for- 
mulated kind. It was still the pure percep- 
tion, and yet all sense of adoration and of 
God’s majesty was gone. The light and the 
peace were there still, but — but not God. . . . 

“Then I perceived, if I may say so, that 
something was on the point of disclosure. It 
was as if something was about to manifest 
itself. I perceived that the light was not as 
it had been. It was like that strange, vivid 
sunlight that we see sometimes when a heavy 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 131 

cloud is overhead. That is the only way in 
which I can express it. It is for that reason 
that I called it light rather than sound or 
touch. For an instant still I hesitated. The 
thought of what had happened to me by the 
rock never came to my mind, and with in- 
conceivable swiftness the process passed on. 
To use an auditory metaphor for a moment 
it was like the change of an orchestra. The 
minor note steals in; a light passes over the 
character of the sound, and simultaneously 
the volume increases, the chords expand, tear- 
ing the heart with them, and the listener per- 
ceives that a moment later the climax will 
break in thunder.” 

He had raised his voice a little by now; his 
eyes glanced this way and that, though still 
without a trace of self-consciousness. Then 
again his voice dropped. 

“Well, gentlemen, before that final moment 
came I had remembered; the vision of the 
rock and the chatter of the stream was before 
me sharp as a landscape under lightning. . . . 
I do not know what I did, but I was aware of 


132 A Mirror of Shalott 

making a kind of terrified effort. My soul 
sprang up as a diver who chokes under water, 
and in an instant the whole thing was gone. 
Then I became aware that my eyes were open 
and that I was standing up. I was still terri- 
fied by the suddenness of the experience, and 
stood there, saying something aloud to Our 
Lord in the Tabernacle. Then I heard the 
door open behind me. 

“ ‘Did you cry out, Father?’ said Bridget. 
‘Why, Mother of Mercy ’ 

“I felt myself beginning to sway on my 
feet. Well, gentlemen, I need not trouble you 
with all that. The truth was that Bridget, 
who was washing up my breakfast things in 
the kitchen, heard me cry out. She told me 
afterward that when she saw my face she 
thought that I was dying. . . . I sat down a 
little then, and she fetched me something, and 
presently I was able to walk out. 

“Well, gentlemen, that is enough for this 
evening.” 

He stopped abruptly. 

We got up and went to night-prayers. 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 


II 

“Well, so far,” began Father Girdlestone on 
the following evening — “so far you see two 
things had happened to me. First there seems 
to have been a kind of unpremeditated assault 
that affected my body, mind, and soul. That 
was the attack by the rock. Then he began 
to lay siege more deliberately, and attacked 
me in my meditation, in what I may call the 
innermost chamber, that anteroom of the 
transcendent world. Now, I have to tell you 
of his next assault.” 

There was a rustle of expectation as we 
settled ourselves to listen. I had found on 
questioning the others in the morning that 
they were in the same attitude as myself, im- 
pressed, but not convinced — indeed, strangely 
impressed by the extreme subtlety of the ex- 
perience related to us. Yet there had been 
no proof, no tangible evidence, such as we are 


134 A Mirror of Shalott 

accustomed to demand, that the incidents had 
been anything more than subjective. At the 
same time there had been something remark- 
able in the priest’s assurance as well as in the 
precise particularity of his narrative. It 
seemed now, however, from what he said, that 
perhaps we were to have more materialistic 
elements presented to us. 

“The result, of course,” continued Father 
Girdlestone, “of the attack upon my soul was 
that I became terrified at the thought of any 
further act of introversion. It seemed to me 
on reflection that I had probably overstrained 
my faculties a little and that I had better be 
more distinctly meditative in devotion. 

“I fetched down, therefore, from my 
shelves a copy of the ‘Spiritual Exercises,’ and 
set to work. I began with a carefully object- 
ive act of the Presence of God, dwelling 
chiefly upon the Blessed Sacrament, and then 
pursued carefully the lines laid down. Two 
or three times every day, I should say, I was 
tempted to fall back upon the Prayer of Quiet, 
and each time I resisted it. It was a kind of 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 135 

frightened fascination that I felt for it. It 
was as if it had been a cupboard where some- 
thing terrible lurked in silence and darkness, 
ready to tear me if I opened the door. Of 
course I should have opened it boldly; any 
priest of experience would have told me so 
at once; but I did not fully understand what 
was wrong. The result was as you shall hear. 

“All went well for several days. I medi- 
tated with care, making the prescribed con- 
siderations — the preludes, the pictures, and all 
the rest, observing to go straight from the 
intellectual act to the voluntary. I became 
soothed and content again. Then, without 
any warning, the new assault was made. It 
came about in this fashion : 

“I was meditating upon the Particular 
Judgment, and had formed the picture as 
vividly as possible of my soul before the 
Judge. I saw the wounds and the stains on 
one side, the ineffably piercing grace and holi- 
ness on the other. I saw the reproach in the 
Judge’s face. I seized my soul by the neck, 
as it were, and crushed it down in humility and 


136 A Mirror of Shalott 

penitence. And then suddenly it seemed to me 
that my hold relaxed, and all faded. Now 
this assault came to me in intellectual form, 
yet I cannot remember the arguments. It be- 
gan, if I may say so, as a blot upon the sub- 
ject of my meditation, effacing the image of 
my Judge and of myself, and it spread with 
inconceivable swiftness over the whole of my 
faith. 

The priest paused, smiling steadily at the 
fire. 

“How shall I put it?” he said. . . . “Well, 
in a word, it was intellectual doubt of the 
whole thing. A kind of cloud of infidelity 
seemed to envelop me. I beat against it, but 
it passed on, thick and black. There seemed 
to me no Person behind it; it was the very 
negation of Personality that surrounded me. 
‘After all,’ it seemed to say to me, yet without 
words or intellect, you understand — ‘after all, 
this is a pretty picture, but where is the proof ? 
What shadow of a proof is there that the 
whole thing is not a dream? If there were 
objective proof, how could any man doubt? 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 137 

If there is not objective proof, what reason 
have you to trust in religion at all — far more, 
to sacrifice your life to it? . . . Death, too, 
what is that but the resolving of the elements 
that issue in what you call the soul? And 
when the elements resolve the soul disperses.’ 
. . . And so on, and so on. You know it, 
gentlemen. ... It suggested horrible things 
against Our Lord when I turned to the Taber- 
nacle. And then, on a sudden, as it had done 
in the deeper plane, it spread upward to an 
intolerable climax. I began to see myself as 
a dying spark in a burning-out world, and 
there was no escape, for there was nothing but 
empty space about me — no God, no heaven, 
not even a devil to hint at life in some form 
at least after death. I looked during those 
seconds into the gulf of annihilation. . . . 
I cried out in my heart that I would sooner 
live in hell than die there . . . and the vision, 
if I may call it so, of ultimate eternal black- 
ness cleared every instant before my intellect 
until it was imminent upon me as a demon- 
strable certainty; and then, once more, before 


i 3 8 


A Mirror of Shalott 


that loomed out as actually intellectually cer- 
tain, I struggled and stood up, saying some- 
thing aloud, the name of God, I think, while 
the sweat poured down my face. 

“It passed then — at least, in its acuteness. 
There was the little domed tabernacle before 
me with its white curtains, and the altar-cards 
and the gilt candlesticks, and a woman went 
past the window in clogs, and I heard a bird 
twitter beneath the eaves, and it was all, for 
a while, natural and peaceful again.” 

The priest stopped. 

“Now, gentlemen,” he said very slowly, 
“intellectual difficulties have occurred to most 
people, I imagine. 'How should it not be so? 
If religion were small enough for our intellects" 
it could not be great enough for our soul’s 
requirements. But this was not just that fleet- 
ing transient obscurity that we call intellectual 
difficulty. It was to ordinary darkness what 
substance is to imagination, what a visible con- 
crete scene is to a fancy, what life is to dream- 
ing. I know I cannot express what I mean ; 
but I want you to take it on my word that this 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 139 

visitation in the realm of the intellect was a 
solid blackness, compared with which all other 
difficulties that I have ever heard of or ex- 
perienced are as a mere lowering of intel- 
lectual lights. It was paralleled only by my 
experience in introversion. That, too, had 
not been an emotional withdrawal, or a spirit- 
ual dryness, as we commonly use those words. 
It had been a solid, unutterably heavy bur- 
den — real beyond description. . . . And fur- 
ther, I want you to consider my dilemma. I 
had been routed in my soul and dared not 
take refuge there; I had been overwhelmed, 
too, in my intellect, and even when the first 
misery had passed it seemed to me that the 
arguments against the Faith were stronger 
than those for it. I did not dare to pit one 
against the other. A heavy deposit had been 
left upon my understanding. I did not dare 
to sit down and argue; I did not dare to run 
for refuge to the Silence of God. I was 
driven out into the sole thing that was left — 
the world of sense.” 

Again he stopped, still with that tranquil 


140 A Mirror of Shalott 

smile. I hardly understood him, though I 
think I saw very dimly what he had called his 
dilemma. Yet I did not understand what he 
meant by the “world of sense.” 

After a little pause he went on. 

“To the world of sense,” he repeated. “It 
seemed to me now that this was all that was 
left. I determined then and there to drop 
my meditation and to confine myself to mass, 
office and rosary. I would say the words with 
my lips, quickly and steadily, keeping my mind 
fixed upon them rather than upon their mean- 
ing, and I would trust that presently the clouds 
would pass. 

“Well, gentlemen, for about two months I 
continued this. The misery I suffered is 
simply indescribable. You can imagine all the 
suggestions I made to myself when I was off 
my guard. I told myself that I was a coward 
and a sham — that I had lost my faith and that 
I continued to act as a priest! What was 
especially hard to bear was the devotion of 
my parishioners. As I knelt in front saying 
the rosary and they responded I could hear the 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 141 

thrill of conviction in every word they uttered. 
Oh, those Irish! The things they said to me 
sometimes were like swords for pain . . . 
the masses they asked me to say . . ! 

“I went to a priest at a distance once or 
twice and told him the bare outline — not as I 
have told it to you. He laughed at me, 
kindly, of course. He told me that it was the 
effect of loneliness, while I knew that at the 
best it was the work of One who bore me con- 
tinual company now and who was stronger 
than I. He told me that all young priests had 
to win the victory in some form or other ; that 
every priest thought his own case the most 
desperate. . . . Yet I knew from every word 
that he said that he did not understand, and 
that I could never make him understand. 
Yet, somehow, I set my teeth ; I told God that 
I was willing to bear this dereliction for as 
long as He willed — so paradoxical and mys- 
terious is the gift of Faith — if He would but 
save my soul, and at last, in a kind of defiance, 
I began to look once more at my designs for 
the church I was to build. 


142 A Mirror of Shalott 

“You see, gentlemen, what I meant by 
taking refuge in the world of sense. I delib- 
erately contemplated never daring to face God 
again interiorly, or even my own soul. I 
would do my duty as a priest; I would say my 
mass and office ; I would preach strictly what 
the Church enjoined; I would live and die 
like that, with my teeth set. Better God 
beaten and denied than all the world beside 
in prosperity!” 

For the first time in the whole of his narra- 
tive Father Girdlestone’s voice trembled a 
little. He passed his thin old hand over his 
mouth once or twice, shifted his position and 
began again. 

“It was on the first of October that I took 
down my plans again. I had not looked at 
them for two months; I had not the heart to 
do so. 

“Now let me describe to you exactly the 
room in which I sat, and the other necessary 
circumstances. 

“In the centre of my room stood my table, 
with two windows on my left, the fire in front, 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 143 

and the door behind me to the right. The 
windows were hung with serge curtains. I 
had no carpet, but a little mat only beneath 
my table and another before the fire. 

“It was in the beginning of October — to be 
accurate, the third of the month — that this 
thing happened that I am about to tell you. 

“I awoke early that morning, said my mass 
as usual, with attention and care, but no 
sensible devotion, and after my thanksgiving 
sat down to breakfast. It was then that I 
first had any uneasiness. 

“I was breakfasting at my table, and be- 
yond me, in front and to the right, stood a 
large basket-chair. I was reading some book 
or other, and can honestly say that nothing 
was further from my mind than my experi- 
ences in the summer. Remember, during two 
months nothing had happened — nothing, at 
least, beyond that intolerable intellectual dark- 
ness. Then the basket-chair suddenly clicked 
in the way in which they do half an hour 
after one has sat in them. It distracted my 
attention for an instant — it was just enough 


144 A Mirror of Shalott 

for that; no more. I went on with my 
book. 

“Then it clicked again three or four times, 
and I looked up, rather annoyed. . . . Well, 
to be brief, this went on and on. After break- 
fast, when Bridget came to fetch the tray, I 
asked whether she had touched the chair that 
morning. She told me No. All this time, re- 
member, no thought of anything odd had 
entered my head. I supposed it was the damp 
and said so. 

“Well, she was still in the room. I went 
out to fetch my breviary from the chapel, and 
as I set foot on the stairs, leaving the door 
open behind me, I heard her, as I thought, 
come out after me with the tray and follow 
me, three or four steps behind, all down the 
staircase. I had no more doubt of that than 
of the fact that I myself was going down- 
stairs. At the turn of the stairs I did not even 
look behind. By the sounds — not clear foot- 
falls, you understand, but a kind of shuffling 
and breathing, and still more by the conscious- 
ness that there she was — I judged she was in 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 145 

a hurry, as she often was. At the foot of the 
stairs I turned to say something, and as I be- 
gan to turn I will swear that I saw a figure out 
of the corner of my eye; but when I looked it 
was simply not there. There was nothing 
there. . . . Do you understand, gentlemen? 
Nothing at all. 

“I called up to her, and heard her come 
across the floor. Then she looked over the 
banister. 

“ ‘Did you come out of the room just now?’ 
I said. 

“ ‘No, your reverence.’ 

“Well, I made my theory, of course. It 
was to the effect that she had moved in the 
room as I came out ; that I therefore thought 
she was following me, and that the rest was 
simply self-suggestion. 

“I got my breviary and came out. As I 
came into the little lobby again there occurred 
to the impression that some one was 
there, waiting in the corner. I looked 
round me ; there was nothing, and I went up- 
stairs. 


146 A Mirror of Shalott 

“Gentlemen, do you know that nervous con- 
dition when one feels there is some one in the 
room ? It is generally dissipated by ten min- 
utes’ conversation. Well, I was in that con- 
dition all the morning. But there was more 
than that. 

“It was not only that sense of some one 
there; there were sounds now and then, very 
faint, but absolutely distinct, coming from all 
quarters — sounds so minute and unimportant 
in themselves that I might have heard them a 
hundred times without giving them another 
thought if they had not been accompanied 
by that sense of a presence with me. They 
were of all kinds. Once or twice a piece of 
woodwork somewhere in the room clicked, as 
my basket-chair had done — a sharp, minute 
rap, such as one hears in damp weather. Once 
the door became unlatched and slid very softly 
with the sound of a hush over a piece of mat- 
ting that lay there. I got up and shut the 
door again, looking, I must confess, for an 
instant on to the landing, and as I came back 
to my chair that clicked twice. 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 147 

“Gentlemen, I know this sounds absurd. 
You will be saying, as I said, that I was simply 
in a nervous condition. Very well, perhaps I 
was; but please wait. Once, as I sat in my 
chair drawn sideways near the fireplace, a very 
slight movement caught my eye. I turned 
sharply; it was no more than the fringe of 
the mat under the table lifting in the draught. 
As I looked it ceased. 

“Well, my nerves got worse and worse. I 
stared every now and then round the room. 
There was nothing to be seen but the boards, 
the mats, the familiar furniture, the black and 
white crucifix over the mantleshelf, my few 
books, and the vestment-chest near the door. 
There were the curtains, too, hanging at the 
windows. That was all. It was a cloudy 
October day, and rained a little about half- 
past twelve. I remember starting suddenly as 
a gust came and dashed the drops against the 
glass. 

“At about a quarter to one Bridget came in 
to lay dinner. ... I am ashamed to say it, 
but I was extraordinarily relieved when I 


1 48 A Mirror of Shalott 

heard her open the downstairs door. She 
came in, you remember, three or four times 
a day to see after me ; otherwise I was alone 
in the house. 

“When she came into the room I looked 
up at her. . . . She smiled at me, and then it 
seemed to me that her face took on it rather 
an odd expression. She stopped smiling, and 
before she set down the tablecloth and knives 
she looked round the room rather curiously, 
I thought. 

“ ‘Well, Bridget/ I said, ‘what is it?’ 

“There was just a moment before she 
answered. 

“ ‘It is nothing, your reverence/ she 
said. 

“Then she laid dinner. I dined, reading 
all the while, and she brought in the dishes 
one by one. I am afraid I hurried rather over 
dinner. I made up my mind to go out for a 
long walk; there was something else in my 
mind, too — well, I may as well tell you; it 
seemed to me that I should rather like to be 
out of the house before she was. Yes; it was 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 149 

cowardly; but remember that all this while 
I was telling myself that I had an attack of 
the nerves, and that I had better not be alone 
except in the fresh air. 

“Well, nothing at all happened that after- 
noon. It seemed to me as I went over the 
moors that all sense of haunting had ceased; 
I noticed first consciously that it had gone soon 
after leaving the outskirts of the village; I 
was entirely happy and serene. 

“As I came back into sight of the village 
at dusk and saw the lights shining over the 
hill the uneasiness came on me again. It 
struck me vividly for the first time that a night 
spent alone in that house would be slightly 
uncomfortable. By this time, of course, too, 
the possibility of a connection between my 
present state and my previous experiences had 
occurred to my mind; but I had striven to 
resist this idea as merely one more nervous 
suggestion. 

“My uneasiness grew greater still as I came 
up the street. I am ashamed to say that I 
stopped to talk three or four times to my 


A Mirror of Shalott 


I 5° 

parishioners simply out of that unaccountably 
strong terror of my own house. I noticed, 
too, across the street that a face peeped from 
Bridget’s window and drew back on seeing 
me. A moment later her door opened and 
she came out. 

“I did not turn or wait for her, but as I 
reached my door I was conscious of a very dis- 
tinct relief that she was behind me, and as I 
went in she came immediately after me. 

“ ‘I am very sorry, Father,’ she said, ‘I 
haven’t your tea ready yet.’ 

“I told her to bring it as soon as she could, 
and went slowly upstairs with the horror deep- 
ening at every step. I knew perfectly well 
now why she had waited; it was that she did 
not like to enter the empty house alone. . . . 
Yet I did not feel that I could ask her what 
it was she feared. That would be a kind of 
surrender on my part — an allowing to myself 
that there was something to fear, and you 
must remember that I still was trying to tell 
myself that it was all nerves.” 

The Rector leaned forward. 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 1 5 t 

“I am very sorry, Father Girdlestone,” he 
said softly, “but it is past time for night- 
prayers.” He paused. “But may we make an 
exception to-night and hear the rest after- 
ward?” 

The old man stood up and motioned with a 
little smile toward the chapel gallery. 


Father Girdlestone’ s Tale 


in 

“As I went forward into the room,” began the 
old man again as soon as we had taken our 
seats in silence, “I knew beyond doubt that I 
was accompanied. I heard Bridget moving 
about downstairs, but it was as sound heard 
through the roar of a train. There went with 
me something resembling a loud noise — in- 
terior, you understand, yet on the brink of 
manifestation in the world of sense; or you 
may call it a blackness, or a vast weight, as 
heavy as heaven and earth, and it was all 
centred round a personality. It was of such 
a nature that I should have been surprised at 
nothing. It appeared to me that all that I 
looked upon — the serge curtains, my table, my 
chair, the glow of the fire on the hearth, and 
the glimmer on the bare boards — all these 
were but as melting shreds and rays hanging 
upon some monstrous reality. They were 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 153 

there, they were just in existence, but they 
were as accidents without substance. 

“I do not know if there were definite sounds 
or not, or even definite appearances, beyond 
the normal, material sounds and sights. There 
may have been, but I do not think so. 

“I went across the room, walking, it seemed 
to me, on nothingness. My body was still in 
sensible relations with matter, but it seemed 
to me that I was not. I found my chair and 
sat down in it to wait. I was nerveless now, 
sunk in a kind of despair that I cannot hope 
to make plain to you. I imagine that a lost 
soul on the edge of death must be in that 
state. 

“I looked almost vacantly round the room 
once or twice; but there was nothing. I 
understood without consideration what was 
happening, and the general course of events. 
It was all one, I perceived now. That which 
had started up at the rock, which had invaded 
first the innermost chamber of my soul, and 
then the intellectual plane, and had established 
itself there, had now taken its frail step for- 


A Mirror of Shalott 


*54 

ward, and was claiming the world of sense as 
well. I felt entirely powerless. You will 
wonder why I did not go downstairs to the 
Blessed Sacrament. I do not know, but it was 
impossible. Here was the battlefield, I knew 
very well. 

“I perceived something else, too. It was 
the reason of the assaults. I did not fully 
understand it, but I knew that the object was 
to drive me from the place — to make the vil- 
lage and the neighborhood detestable to me. 
I knew that I could escape by going away, 
yet it was not exactly a temptation. I had 
no interior desire to escape. It was merely 
a question as to which force would prevail in 
my soul — that which impelled me away and 
grace which held me there. I was as a pas- 
sive dummy between them. . . . 

“I do not know how long it was before 
Bridget pushed open the door. I saw her 
with the tray come across the room and set it 
down upon my table. Then I saw her looking 
at me. 

“ ‘Bridget,’ I said, ‘I shall want no supper 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 155 

to-night. And tell the people that I am un- 
well and that there will be no night-prayers. 
There will be mass, I hope, as usual in the 
morning.’ 

“I said those words, I believe; but the voice 
was not as my own. It was as if another 
spoke. I saw her looking at me across the 
dusk with an extraordinary terror in her face. 

“ ‘Come away, Father,’ she whispered. 

“I shook my head. 

“ ‘Come away,’ she whispered again. ‘This 
is not a good house to be in.’ 

“I said nothing. 

“ ‘Shall I fetch Father Donovan to you, 
Father,’ she whispered, ‘or the doctor?’ 

“ ‘Fetch no one,’ I said to her. ‘Tell no 
one. Ask for prayers, if you will. Go and 
leave me to myself, Bridget.’ 

“I think I understood even then what the 
struggle was she was going through. I do 
not know if she perceived all that I perceived, 
but even from her face, without her words, 
I knew that she was conscious of something. 
Yet she did not like to leave me alone. She 


156 A Mirror of Shalott 

stood perfectly still, looking first at me, then 
slowly round the room, then back at me again. 
And as she looked the dusk fell veil on veil. 

“Then something happened, I do not know 
what; I never questioned her afterward, but 
she was gone. I heard her stumbling and 
moaning down the stairs. An instant later the 
street door opened and banged, and I was left 
alone. 

“I cannot tell you what I felt. I knew only 
that the crisis was come, and that the result 
was out of my hands. I closed my eyes, I 
think, and lay right back in my chair. It was 
as if I were submitting myself to an operation ; 
I wondered vaguely as to what shape it would 
take. 

“All about the room I felt the force gather- 
ing. There was no oscillation, no vibration, 
but a steady, continuous stream concentrating 
itself within the four walls. With this the 
sense of the central personality grew every 
moment more and more intense and vivid. It 
seemed to me as if I were some tiny, conscious 
speck of matter in the midst of a life whose 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 157 

vastness and malignance was beyond concep- 
tion. At times it was this; at other times it 
was as if I looked within and saw a space full 
of some indescribable blackness — a space of 
such a nature that I could not tell whether 
it was as tiny as a pinhole or as vast as infinity. 
It was spaceless space, sheer emptiness, but 
with an emptiness that was a horror, and it 
was within me. 

“Yet it was not simple spirit — it was not 
the correlative of matter. It was rather 
spirit in the very throes of manifestation in 
matter. . . . 

“Sometimes then I attended to this; some- 
times I lay with every sense at full stretch — 
at a tenseness that seemed impossible, directed 
outward. I cannot tell even now whether the 
room was poised in deathly silence or in an 
indescribable clamor and roar of tongues. It 
was one or the other, or it was both at once. 

“Or, to take the sense of sight. . . . Al- 
though my eyes were closed, every detail of 
the room was before me. Sometimes I saw 
it as rigid as a man at grips with death, in a 


158 A Mirror of Shalott 

kind of pallor — the table, the dying fire, the 
uncurtained windows — all in the pallor — the 
very names of the books visible — all, as it 
were, striving to hold themselves in material 
being under the stress of some enormous de- 
structive force with which they were charged 
— as rigid and as silent and as significant as an 
electric wire — and as full of power. Or at 
times all seemed to me to have gone, simply 
to have dissolved into nothingness, as a breath 
fades on a window — to retain but a phantom 
of themselves. . . . 

“Well, well . . . words are very useless, 
gentlemen; . . . they are poor things ” 

The old priest paused a moment, leaning 
forward in his chair with his thin, veined 
hands together. For myself I cannot say what 
I felt. I seemed to be in somewhat of the 
same state as that which he was describing; 
all my senses, too, were stretched to the full 
by the intensity of my attention. Yet the 
narrator seemed little affected; he leaned and 
looked peacefully into the fire, and I caught 
the glint of light on his deep eyes. 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 159 

Then he leaned back and went on. 

“Now you must picture to yourselves, 
gentlemen, that this state grew steadily in its 
energy. I did not know before — and I can 
scarcely believe it now — that human nature 
could bear so much. Yet I seemed to myself 
to be observing my strained faculties from a 
plane apart from them. It was as the owner 
of a besieged castle might stand on a keep and 
watch the figures of his men staring out over 
the battlements at a sight he could not see. 
There were my eyes looking, my ears listening, 
even the touch of my fingers on the chair-arms 
questioning what it was that they held; and 
there was I — my very self — far within wait- 
ing for communications. 

“I suppose that I knew there was no escape. 
I could not descend into the sphere of reason, 
for another Power held the keys ; I could not 
sink again to the inner Presence of God, for 
that chamber, too, was occupied; there was 
this last stand to be made — the world of sense. 
If that was lost, all was lost; and I could not 
lift a finger to help. And, as I said, the strain 


160 A Mirror of Shalott 

grew greater each instant, as the opening swell 
of an organ waxes with a long, steady cres- 
cendo to its final roar. . . . 

“I do not know at exactly what point I 
understood the assault, but it became known 
to me presently that what was intended was 
to merge the world of sense, so far as I was 
concerned, into this mighty essence of evil — 
to burst through, or, rather, to transcend the 
material. Then I knew I should be wholly 
lost. I remember, too, that I perceived soon 
after this that this was what the world calls 
madness . . . and I understood at this mo- 
ment as never before how that process con- 
summates itself. It begins, as mine did, with 
the carrying of the inner life by storm; that 
may come about by deliberate acquiescence in 
sin. I should suppose that it always does in 
some degree. Then the intellect is attacked — 
it may only be in one point — a ‘delusion’ it is 
called, and with many persons regarded only 
as eccentric — the process goes no further. 
But when the triumph is complete the world 
of sense, too, is lost, and the man raves. I 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 161 

knew at that time for absolute fact that this 
is the process, The ‘delusions’ of the mad are 
not non-existent — they are glimpses, horrible 
or foul or fantastic, of that strange world 
that we take so quietly for granted, that at 
this moment and at every moment is per- 
petually about us, foaming out its waters in 
lust or violence or mad irresponsible blas- 
phemy against the Most High. 

“Well, I saw that this was what threatened, 
yet I could not move a finger. No thought 
of flight entered my mind. All had gone 
too far by now. . . . 

“Then, gentlemen, the climax came.” 

Again the old priest was silent. 

I heard Monsignor’s pipe drop with a clat- 
ter, and my nerves thrilled like a struck harp. 
He made no movement to pick it up. He 
stared only at the old man. 

Then the quiet voice went on. 

“This was the climax, gentlemen. . . . 
The intensity swelled and swelled ; . . . each 
moment I thought must be the last — the 
utmost effort of hell. Then with a crash the 


1 62 A Mirror of Shalott 

full close sounded; and through the rending 
tear, through the veil of matter that whirled 
away and was gone, I caught one swift 
glimpse of all that lay beneath. It was not 
through one sense that I perceived it; it 
was through perception pure and simple. 
. . . Well, how can I say it? It was 
this. . . . 

“I perceived two vast forces pressed one 
against the other, as silent and as rigid as . . . 
as the glass of a diver’s helmet against the 
huge, incumbent, glittering water. It is a 
wretched simile. . . . Let us say that the 
appearance was as the meeting of fire and 
water without mist or tumult. The forces 
were absolutely opposed, absolutely alien, yet 
absolutely one in the plane of being. They 
could meet as the created and uncreated could 
not — as flesh and spirit cannot. They met, 
level, coincident, each rigid to breaking point 
— each full of an energy to which there is no 
parallel in this world. 

“It seemed to me that all had waited for 
this. The enemy had been permitted to enter 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 163 

the gate; and at the instant of his triumph the 
fire of God was upon him, locked in the em- 
brace of utter repulsion. . . . 

“And it was given to me to watch that, 
gentlemen. . . . On the edge of what the 
world labels as madness, at the very instant 
that I hung balanced on that line, I saw that 
endless war of spirit and spirit, which has 
been waging since Michael drove Satan from 
heaven — that ceaseless, writhing conflict in 
which all that is not for God is against Him, 
seeking to dethrone and annihilate Him who 
gave it being. Ah, words . . . words . . . 
but I saw it . . . !” 

There was a dead silence in the room. The 
priest drew one breath. 

“Then I saw no more. I was in my chair 
as before, holding the arms; and the room 
round me stole back into being — through the 
pallor of a phantom to the dusk of earthly 
twilight; and I perceived that my eyes were 
closed and not open. 

“There then I stayed, knowing that the war 
still waged beneath, yet fainter every moment 


164 A Mirror of Shalott 

as the tide crawled back, contesting inch by 
inch, rolled back by that remorseless power. 
Twice or three times I heard the murmur of 
sound in the room ; the serge curtains swayed. 
I could hear them. I heard the door vibrating 
softly; then once more the quiet silence was 
there, and I heard the ashes slip by their 
weight from grate to fender. Nature at least 
was itself again. Then once more, as into my 
intellect, the light stole back, and I knew that 
God reigned and that His Son was Incarnate, 
crucified and risen by many irrefragable 
proofs, round the house I could hear the mur- 
muring of voices, and saw through closed eye- 
lids of utter repose the glimmer of lanterns 
on the ceiling. 

“Within myself, too, I watched the roar of 
evil; I drew breath after breath, deep and 
life-giving, as far down within the secret 
chambers of my soul the foul filth ebbed and 
sank, and that spring raising into life ever- 
lasting, of which our Saviour spoke, welled up 
in its stead, filling every cranny and corner 
of my soul with that strange sweetness, so 


Father Girdlestone’s Tale 165 

sweet and so dear that we forget it as the very 
air we breathe. 

“The murmur of conflict was infinitely far 
away; and it seemed to me that once more 
I went down, down, in that introversion of 
which I spoke just now, seeing all clear and 
sweet about me, down into the Presence of the 
Lord who rules heaven and earth at His will. 
Then a door closed, deep, deep below, and I 
knew that the enemy was gone. . . . 

“Well, gentlemen,” said the priest after 
a pause, leaning back, “that is really the 
story. But there are a few details to 
add. 

“When the men that Bridget had fetched 
came upstairs they found me asleep, but they 
told me afterward there were streaks of foam 
at the corners of my mouth. Yet she was 
not gone three minutes. 

“I never spoke a word to them of what 
happened. They knew quite enough for lay- 
men. . . . We had night-prayers as usual that 
evening. I said the Vi sit a quasumus Domine 
at the end. . . . 


1 66 A Mirror of Shalott 

“I slept like a child, and I said a mass of 
thanksgiving next day.” 

Father Brent broke the silence that fol- 
lowed. His voice seemed strange. 

“And the church, Father?” 

The old priest smiled at him full. 

“You have guessed it,” he said. “Yes, the 
church was built thirty years later. It is a 
basilica, as I said; it presents Our Lord in 
glory in an apse. It stands, curiously enough, 
on the rock; but it is in the middle of a huge 
colliery town, and — well, I may as well say 
it — there is a grated tribune above the high 
altar at one side through which a convent of 
Poor Clares can assist at the holy sacrifice. 
Poor Clares! 

“I ceased to wonder at the assault as soon 
as the convent was built.” 

He stood up, smiling. 


FATHER BLANCHES TALE 



VI 


Father Blanches Tale 

Father Bianchi, as the days went on, 
seemed a little less dogmatic on the theory 
that miracles (except, of course, those of the 
saints) did not happen. He was warned by 
Monsignor Maxwell that his turn was ap- 
proaching to contribute a story, and suddenly 
at supper announced that he would prefer to 
get it over at once that evening. 

“But I have nothing to tell,” he cried, ex- 
postulating with hands and shoulders, “noth- 
ing to tell but the nonsense of an old peasant- 
woman.” 

When we had taken our places upstairs, and 
the Italian had again apologized and remon- 
strated with raised eyebrows, he began at 
last, and I noticed that he spoke with a 
seriousness that I should not have expected. 

“When I was first a priest,” he said, “I was 
in the south of Italy, and said my first mass 


170 A Mirror of Shalott 

in a church in the hills. The village was 
called Arripezza.” 

“Is that true?” said Monsignor suddenly, 
smiling. 

The Italian grinned brilliantly. “Well, 
no,” he said, “but it is near enough, and I 
swear to you that the rest is true. It was a 
village in the hills, ten miles from Naples. 
They have many strange beliefs there; it is 
like Father Brent’s Cornwall. All along the 
coast, as you know, they set lights in the win- 
dows on one night of the year, because they 
relate that our Lady once came walking on the 
water with her divine Child, and found none 
to give her shelter. Well, this village that we 
will call Arripezza was not on the coast. It 
was inland, but it had its own superstitions to 
compensate it — superstitions cursed by the 
Church. 

“I knew little of all this when I went there. 
I had been in the seminary until then. 

“The parrocho was an old man, but old! 
He could say mass sometimes on Sundays 
and feasts, but that was all, and I went to 


Father Bianchi’s Tale 171 

help him. There were many at my first mass 
as the custom is, and they all came up to kiss 
my hands when it was done. 

“When I came back from the sacristy again 
there was an old woman waiting for me, who 
told me that her name was Giovannina. I 
had seen her before as she kissed my hands. 
She was as old as the parrocho himself — I 
cannot tell how old — yellow and wrinkled as 
a monkey. 

“She put five loie into my hands. 

“ ‘Five masses, Father,’ she said, ‘for a soul 
in purgatory.’ 

“ ‘And the name?’ 

“ ‘That does not matter,’ she said. ‘And 
will you say them, my Father, at the altar of 
S. Espedito?’ 

“I took the money and went off, and as I 
went down the church, I saw her looking after 
me, as if she wished to speak, but she made no 
sign, and I went home; and I had a dozen 
other masses to say, some for my friends, and 
a couple that the parrocho gave me, and 
those, therefore, I began to say first. When 


ij2 A Mirror of Shalott 

I had said the fifth of the twelve, Giovannina 
waited for me again at the door of the 
sacristy. I could see that she was troubled. 

“ ‘Have you not said them, my Father?’ 
she asked. ‘He is here still.’ 

“I did not notice what she said, except the 
question, and I said no; I had had others to 
say first. She blinked at me with her old eyes 
a moment, and I was going on, but she 
stopped me again. 

“ ‘Ah! Say them at once, my Father,’ she 
said; ‘he is waiting.’ 

“Then I remembered what she had said be- 
fore and I was angry. 

“ ‘Waiting!’ I said; ‘and so are thousands 
of poor souls.’ 

“ ‘Ah, but he is so patient,’ she said; ‘he 
has waited so long.’ 

“I said something sharp, I forget what, but 
the parrocho had told me not to hang about 
and talk nonsense to women, and I was going 
on, but she took me by the arm. 

“ ‘Have you not seen him too, my Father?’ 
she said. 


Father Bianchi’s Tale 173 

“ ‘I looked at her, thinking she was mad, 
but she held me by the arm and blinked up at 
me, and seemed in her senses. I told her to 
tell me what she meant, but she would not. 
At last I promised to say the masses at once. 
The next morning I began the masses, and 
said four of them, and at each the old woman 
was there close to me, for I said them at the 
altar of S. Espedito that was in the nave, as 
she had asked me, and I had a great devotion 
to him as well, and she was always at her chair 
just outside the altar-rails. I scarcely saw her, 
of course, for I was a young priest and had 
been taught not to lift my eyes when I turned 
round, but on the fourth day I looked at her 
at the Orate fratres and she was staring not 
at me or the altar, but at the corner on the 
left. I looked there when I turned, but there 
was nothing but the glass case with the silver 
hearts in it to S. Espedito. 

“That was on a Friday, and in the evening 
I went to the church again to hear confes- 
sions, and when I was done, the old woman 
was there again. 


174 A Mirror of Shalott 

“ ‘They are nearly done, my Father?’ she 
said, ‘and you will finish them to-morrow?’ 

“I told her Yes; but she made me promise 
that whatever happened I would do so. 

“Then she went on, ‘Then I will tell you, 
my Father, what I would not before. I do 
not know the man’s name, but I see him each 
day during mass at that altar. He is in the 
corner. I have seen him there ever since the 
church was built.’ 

“Well, I knew she was mad then, but I was 
curious about it, and asked her to describe 
him to me ; and she did so. I expected a man 
in a sheet or in flames or something of the 
kind, but it was not so. She described to me 
a man in a dress she did not know — a tunic to 
the knees, bareheaded, with a short sword in 
his hand. Well, then I saw what she meant, 
she was thinking of S. Espedito himself. He 
was a Roman soldier, you remember, gentle- 
men? 

“ ‘And a curiass?’ I said. ‘A steel breast- 
plate and helmet?’ 

“Then she surprised me. 


Father Bianchi’s Tale 175 

“ ‘Why, no, Father; he has nothing on his 
head or breast, and there is a bull beside him.’ 

“Well, gentlemen, I was taken aback by 
that. I did not know what to say.” 

Monsignor leant swiftly forward. 

“Mithras,” he said abruptly. 

The Italian smiled. 

“Monsignor knows everything,” he said. 

Then I broke in, because I was more inter- 
ested than I knew. 

“Tell me, Monsignor, what was Mithras?” 

The priest explained shortly. It was an 
Eastern worship, extraordinarily pure, intro- 
duced into Italy a little after the beginning of 
the Christian era. Mithras was a god, filling 
a position not unlike that of the Second Per- 
son of the Blessed Trinity. He offered a per- 
petual sacrifice, and through that sacrifice 
souls were enabled to rise from earthly things 
to heavenly, if they relied upon it and accom- 
panied that faith by works of discipline and 
prayer. 

“I beg your pardon, Father Bianchi,” he 
ended. 


176 A Mirror of Shalott 

The Italian smiled again. 

“Yes, Monsignor, ” he said, “I know that 
now, but I did not know it for many years 
afterwards, and I know something else now 
that I did not know then. Well, to return. 

“I told my old woman that she was dream- 
ing, that it could not be so, that there was no 
room for a bull in the corner, that it was a 
picture of S. Espedito that she was thinking 
of. 

u ‘And why did you not get the masses said 
before ?’ I asked. 

“She smiled rather slyly at me then. 

“ ‘I did get five said once before,’ she said, 
‘in Naples, but they did him no good. And 
when once again I told the parrocho here, he 
told me to be off ; he would not say them.’ 

“And she had waited for a young priest, it 
seemed, and had determined not to tell him 
the story till the masses were said, and had 
saved up her money meanwhile. 

“Well, I went home, and got to talking with 
the old priest, and led him on, so that he 
thought that he had introduced the subject, 


Father Bianchi’s Tale 1 77 

and presently he told me that when the foun- 
dation of the church had been laid forty years 
before, they had found an old cave in the hill, 
with heathen things in it. He knew no more 
than that about it, but he told me to fetch a 
bit of pottery from a cupboard, and showed 
it me, and there was just the tail of a bull upon 
it, and an eagle.” 

Monsignor leaned forward again. 

“Just so,” he said, “and the bull was lying 
down?” 

The Italian nodded, and was silent. 

We all looked at him. It seemed a tame 
ending, I thought. Then Father Brent put 
our thoughts into words. 

“That is not all?” he said. 

Father Bianchi looked at him sharply, and 
at all of us, but said nothing. 

“Ah ! that is not all,” said the other again 
persistently. 

“Bah !” cried the Italian suddenly. “It was 
not all, if you will have it so. But the rest is 
madness, as mad as Giovannina herself. 
What I saw, I saw because she made me ex- 


178 A Mirror of Shalott 

pect it. It was nothing but the shadow, or 
the light in the glass case.” 

A perceptible thrill ran through us all. The 
abrupt change from contempt to seriousness 
was very startling. 

“Tell us, Father,” said the English priest; 
“we shall think no worse of you for it. If 
it was only the shadow, what harm is there 
in telling it?” 

“Indeed you must finish,” went on Mon- 
signor; “it is in the contract.” 

The Italian looked round again, frowned, 
smiled and laughed uneasily. 

“I have told it to no one till to-day,” he said, 
“but you shall hear it. But it was only the 
shadow — you understand that?” 

A chorus, obviously insincere, broke out 
from the room. 

“It was only the shadow, Padre Bianchi.” 

Again the priest laughed shortly; then the 
smile faded, and he went on. 

“I went down early the next morning, before 
dawn, and I made my meditation before the 
Blessed Sacrament ; but I could not help look- 


Father Bianchi’s Tale 179 

ing across once or twice at the corner by 
S. Espedito’s altar; it was too dark to see any- 
thing clearly; but I could make out the silver 
hearts in the glass case. When I had finished 
Giovannina came in. 

“I could not help stopping by her chair as I 
went to rest. 

“ ‘Is there anything there?’ I asked. 

“She shook her head at me. 

“ ‘He is never there till mass begins,’ she 
said. 

“The sacristy door that opens out of doors 
was set wide as I came past it in my vest- 
ments; and the dawn was coming up across 
the hills, all purple.” 

Monsignor murmured something, and the 
priest stopped. 

“I beg your pardon,” said Monsignor; “but 
that was the time the sacrifice of .Mithras was 
offered.” 

“When I came out into the church,” went 
on the priest, “it was all gray in the light of 
the dawn, but the chapels were still dark. I 


180 A Mirror of Shalott 


went up the steps, not daring to look in the 
corner, and set the vessels down. As I was 
spreading the corporal the server came up and 
lighted the candles. And still I dared not 
look. I turned by the right and came down, 
and stood waiting till he knelt beside me. 

“Then I found I could not begin. I knew 
what folly it was, but I was terribly fright- 
ened. I heard the server whisper, In nomine 
Patris . . . 

“Then I shut my eyes tight, and began. 

“Well, by the time I had finished the 
preparation, I felt certain that something was 
watching me from the corner. I told myself, 
as I tell myself now,” snapped the Italian 
fiercely — “I told myself it was but what the 
woman had told me. And then at last I 
opened my eyes to go up the steps, but I kept 
them down, and only saw the dark corner out 
of the side of my eyes. 

“Then I kissed the altar and began. 

“Well, it was not until the Epistle that I 
understood that I should have to face the 
corner at the reading of the Gospel; but by 


Father Bianchi’s Tale 1 8 1 

then I do not think I could have faced it 
directly, even if I had wished. 

“So when I was saying the Munda cor in the 
centre, I thought of a plan, and as I went to 
read the Gospel I put my left hand over my 
eyes, as if I were in pain, and read the Gospel 
like that. And so all through the mass I 
went on; I always dropped my eyes when I 
had to turn that way at all, and I finished 
everything and gave the blessing. 

“As I gave it, I looked at the old woman, 
and she was kneeling there, staring across at 
the corner; so I knew that she was still 
dreaming she saw something. 

“Then I went to read the last Gospel.” 

The priest was plainly speaking with great 
difficulty; he passed his hands over his lips 
once or twice. We were all quiet. 

“Well, gentlemen, courage came to me 
then; and as I signed the altar I looked 
straight into the corner.” 

He stopped again, and began resolutely 
once more ; but his voice rang with hysteria. 

“Well, gentlemen, you understand that my 


1 82 


A Mirror of Shalott 


head was full of it now, and that the corner 
was dark, and that the shadows were very 
odd.” 

“Yes, yes, Padre Bianchi,” said Monsignor 
easily, “and what did the shadows look like?” 

The Italian gripped the arms of the chair, 
and screamed his answer. 

“I will not tell you, I will not tell you. It 
was but the shadow. My God, why have I 
told you the tale at all?” 


FATHER JENKS’ TALE 


m 






VII 


Father Jenks y Tale 

I have not yet had occasion to describe 
Father Jenks, the Ontario priest; partly, I 
think, because he had not previously distin- 
guished himself by anything but silence, and 
partly because he was so true to his type that 
I had scarcely noticed even that. 

It was not until the following evening, 
when he was seated in the central chair of the 
group, that I really observed him sufficiently 
to take in his characteristics with any definite- 
ness and to see how wholly he was American. 
He was clean-shaven, with a heavy mouth, 
square jaw, and an air of something that I 
must call dulness, relieved only by a spark 
of alertness in each of his eyes, as he leaned 
back and began his story. He spoke deliber- 
ately, in an even voice, and as he spoke looked 
steadily a little above the fire; his hands lay 
together on his right knee, which was crossed 


1 86 A Mirror of Shalott 

over his left, and I noticed a large, elastic- 
sided boot cocked toward the warmth. I knew 
that he had passed a great part of his early 
life in England, and I was not surprised to 
observe that he spoke with hardly a trace of 
American accent or phraseology. 

“I, too, am a man of one story,” he said, 
“and I dare say you may think it not worth 
the telling. But it impressed me.” 

He looked round with heavy, amused eyes 
as if to apologize. 

“It was when I was in England, in the 
eighties. I was in the Cotswolds. You know 
them, perhaps?” 

Again he looked round. Monsignor Max- 
well jerked the ash off his cigarette im- 
patiently. This American’s air of leisure was 
a little tiresome. 

“I lived in a cottage,” went on the other, 
“at the edge of Minchester, not two hun- 
dred yards from the old church. My own 
schism shop, as the parson called it once or 
twice in the local paper, was a tin building 
behind my house; it was not beautiful. It 


Father Jenks’ Tale 187 

was a kind of outlandish stranger beside the 
church, and the parson made the most of that. 
I never was able to understand.” 

He broke off again and pressed his lips in 
a reminiscent smile. 

“Now, all that part of the Cotswolds is like 
a table ; it is flat' at the top, with steep sides 
sloping down into the valleys. The great 
houses stand mostly half way down these 
slopes. It is too windy on the top for their 
trees and gardens. The Dominicans have a 
house a few miles from Minchester up one 
of the opposite hills; and I would go over 
there to my confession on Saturdays and stay 
an hour or two over tea, talking to one of 
them. It was there that I heard the tale of 
the house I am going to speak about. 

“This was a house that stood not two miles 
from my own village — a great place, built 
half way down one of the slopes. It had been 
a Benedictine house once, though there was 
little enough of that part left; most of it was 
red brick with twisted chimneys; but on the 
lawn that sloped down toward the wood and 


1 88 A Mirror of Shalott 


the stream at the bottom of the valley there 
was the west arch of the nave still standing, 
with the doorway beneath and a couple of 
chapels on either side. Mrs. — er — Arbuth- 
not we will call her, if you please — had laid 
it out with a rockery beneath; and once I saw 
her from the hill behind drinking tea with her 
friends in one of the chapels. 

“Then the dining-room, I heard from the 
Dominicans, had been the abbot’s chapel. 
This, too, was what they told me. The house 
had been shut up for forty years and had a 
bad name. It had once been a farm, but things 
had happened there — the sons had died, 
a famous horse bred there had broken its neck 
somehow on the lawn. Then another family 
had taken it from the owner, and the only 
son of the lot, too, had died; and then folks 
began to talk about a curse; and the oldest 
inhabitant was trotted out as usual to make 
mischief and gossip; and the end was, the 
house was shut up. 

“Then the owner had built on to it. He 
pulled down a bit more of the ruins, meaning 


Father Jenks’ Tale 189 

to live in it himself, and then his son went 
up.” 

The Canadian smiled with one corner of 
his mouth. 

‘‘This is what I heard from the Domini- 
cans, you know.” 

Father Brent looked up swiftly. 

“They are right, though,” he said. “I 
know the house and others like it.” 

“Yes, Father,” said the other priest; “your 
island has its points.” 

He recrossed his legs and drew out his pipe 
and pouch. 

“Well, as this priest says, there are other 
houses like it. Otherwise I could scarcely tell 
this tale. It’s too ancient and feudal to hap- 
pen in my country.” 

He paused so long to fill his pipe that 
Father Maxwell sighed aloud. 

“Yes, Monsignor,” said the priest without 
looking up, “I am going on immediately.” 

He put his pipe into the corner of his 
mouth, took out his matches and went on. 

“Well, Mrs. Arbuthnot had taken the 


190 A Mirror of Shalott 

house a year before I came to Minchester. 
She was what the Dominicans called a frivo- 
lous woman ; but I called her real solid before 
the end. What they meant was that she had 
parties down there, and tea in the chapel, and 
a dresser with blue plates where the altar used 
to stand in the abbot’s place, and a vestment 
for her fire-screen, and all that; and a couple 
of chestnuts that she used to drive about the 
country with, and a groom in boots, and a 
couple of fellows with powdered hair to help 
her in and out. 

“Well, I saw all that at a garden-party 
she gave, and I must say we got on very well. 
I had seen her before once or twice out of my 
window on Sunday morning going along with 
a morocco prayer-book with a cross on it, and 
a bonnet on the back of her head. Then I 
showed her round the old church one day 
with some visitors of hers, and she left a card 
on me next day. 

“On the day of the garden-party I saw the 
house, and the blue china and the rest, and 
she asked me what I thought of it all, and I 


Father Jenks’ Tale 191 

said it was very nice; and she asked me 
whether I thought it wrong, with a sort of 
cackle; and I told her she had better follow 
her own religious principles and let me follow 
mine, and not have any exchanges. She told 
me then I was a sensible man, and called up 
her son to introduce us. He was a fellow of 
twenty or so, a bright lad, up at Oxford. He 
was just engaged to be married, too — that 
was why they had the party — and when I saw 
his girl, too, I thought things looked pretty 
unwholesome for the old curse, and I think I 
said so to the lady. She thought me more sen- 
sible than ever after that, and I heard her 
telling another old body what I had said.” 

The Canadian paused again to strike a 
match, and I saw the corners of his mouth 
twitching either with the effort to draw or 
with amusement; I scarcely knew which. 
When the pipe was well alight he went on. 

“It was on the last Sunday of September 
that year that I heard the young man was ill, 
and that the marriage was put off. I remem- 
ber it well, partly because they were having a 


192 A Mirror of Shalott 

high time at the church, decorating it all for 
Michaelmas, which was next day, with the 
parson pretending it was for Harvest Festi- 
val, as they always do. I had seen the pump- 
kins go in the day before, and wondered 
where they put them all. I went up to the 
churchyard after mass to have a look, and 
was nearly knocked down by the parson. I 
began to say something or other, but he ran 
past me, through from the vicarage, with his 
coat-tails flying and his man after him. But I 
stopped the man, and got out of him that 
Archie was ill, and that the parson was sent 
for. 

“Well, then I went back home and sat 
down.” 

The priest drew upon his pipe in silence a 
moment or two. 

I felt rather impressed. His airy manner 
of talking was shot now with a kind of seri- 
ousness, and I wondered what was coming 
next. 

He went on almost immediately. 

“I heard a bit more as the day 


wore on. 


Father Jenks’ Tale 193 

One of my people stayed after Catechism to 
tell me that the young man was worse, that 
a doctor had come from Stroud, and another 
wired for from London. 

“Well, I waited. I thought I knew what 
would happen. I thought I had seen a bit 
more in the old lady than the Dominicans had 
seen, but what I was going to say to her I 
knew no more than the dead. 

“Then that night as I was going to bed — I 
had just said Matins and Lauds for Michael- 
mas day — the message came. 

“I was half way upstairs when I heard a 
knocking at the door, and I went down again 
and opened it. There stood one of the fel- 
lows I had seen on the box of the carriage, 
and he was out of breath with running. He 
had a lantern in his hand, because there was 
a thick mist that night up from the valley. 

“He gave me the lady’s compliments, and 
would I step down? Master Archie was ill. 
That was all.” 

“Well, in a minute we were off into the 
thick of the mist. I took nothing with me 


194 A Mirror of Shalott 

but my stole, for it was not a proper sick call. 
We said little or nothing to each other. He 
just told me that Master Archie had been 
taken ill about ten o’clock, quite suddenly. 
He didn’t know what it was.” , 

The priest paused again for a moment. 
Then he went on almost apologetically. 
“You know how it is, gentlemen, when 
something runs in your head. It may be a 
tune or a sentence. And I don’t know if 
you’ve noticed how strong it is sometimes 
when you have something on your mind. 

“Well, what ran in my head was a bit of the 
office I had just said. It was this. I have 
never forgotten it since: 

“Stetit Angelus juxta or am templi habens 
thuribulum anreum in manu sua ” 

He said it again, and then added: 

“It comes frequently in the office, you re- 
member. It was very natural to remember 
it. 


“Well, in half an hour we were at the top 
of the hill above the house. I think there 


F ather J enks’ Tale 195 

must have been a moon, because we could 
see the mist round us like smoke, but noth- 
ing of the house, not even the lights in the 
top floors below us. It was all white and 
misty. 

4 ‘Then we started down through the iron 
gate and the plantation. I could have lost 
my way again and again but for the fellow 
with me, and still we saw nothing of the house 
till we were close to it on one side ; and then I 
looked up and saw a window like a great yel- 
low door overhead. 

“We came round to the front of the house, 
and there was a carriage there drawn up, with 
the lamps smoking in the mist, and as we came 
up I saw that the horses were steaming and 
blowing. The driver had just brought the 
London doctor from Stroud and was wait- 
ing for orders, I suppose.” 

The Canadian paused again. 

I was more interested than ever. His de- 
scriptions had become queerly particular, and 
I wondered why. I did not understand yet. 
The rest, too, were very quiet. 


196 A Mirror of Shalott 

“We went in through the hall past the 
stuffed bear that held the calling cards and all 
that, you know, and then turned in to the left 
to the big dining-room that had been the 
Abbot’s chapel. Some fool had left the win- 
dow open. I suppose they were too flurried to 
think of it. At any rate, the mist had got in, 
and made the gas-jets overhead look high up 
like great stars. 

“There was a door open upstairs some- 
where, and I could hear whispering. 

“Well, we went up the staircase that opened 
on one side below the gallery, that they had 
put up above the eastern end. The footpad 
was still there, you know, below the gallery, 
and the sideboard stood there. 

“We came out on to the gallery presently, 
and my man stopped. 

“Then some one came out with Mrs. Ar- 
buthnot and the door closed. She saw me 
standing there, and I thought she was going 
to scream; but the fellow with her in the fur 
coat — he was the London doctor I heard 
afterward — took her by the arm. 


Father Jenks’ Tale 197 

“Well, she was quiet enough then, but as 
white as death. She had her bonnet on still, 
just as she must have put it on to go to church 
with in the morning, when the young man was 
taken ill. She beckoned me along, and I 
went. 

“As I was going past the doctor he first 
shook his head at me, and then whispered as 
I went on to keep her quiet. I knew there 
was no hope then for Archie, and I was sorry, 
very sorry, gentlemen.” 

The priest shook his own head meditatively 
once or twice, leaned forward and spat ac- 
curately into the heart of the fire. 

“Well, it was a big room that I went into, 
and to tell the truth, I left the door open this 
time, because I was startled by the screen at 
the bed and all that. 

“The screen stood in the corner by the win- 
dow to keep off the draught; and the bed to 
one side of it. I could just catch a glimpse 
of the lad’s face on the pillow and the local 
doctor close by him. There was a woman or 
two there as well. 


1 98 A Mirror of Shalott 

“But the worst was that the lad was talking 
and moaning out loud, but I didn’t attend to 
him then, and besides, Mrs. Arbuthnot had 
gone through by another door, and I went 
after her. 

“It was a kind of dressing-room — Archie’s 
perhaps. There was a tall glass and silver 
things on the table by the window, and a 
candle or two burning. She turned round 
there and faced me, and she looked so deadly 
that I forgot all about the lad for the present. 
I just looked out to catch her when she fell. 
I had seen a woman like that once or twice 
before. 

“Well, she said all that I expected — all 
about the curse and that, and the sins of the 
fathers; and it was all her fault for taking 
the beastly place, and how she would swear to 
clear out — I couldn’t get a word in — and at 
last she said she’d become a Catholic if the 
boy lived. 

“I did get a word in then, and told her 
not to talk nonsense. The Church didn’t 
want people like that. They must believe 


Father Jenks* Tale 199 

first and so on, and all the while I was look- 
ing out to catch her. 

“Well, she didn’t hear a word I said, but 
she sat down all on a sudden, and I sat down, 
too, opposite her, and all the while the boy’s 
voice grew louder and louder from the next 
room. 

“Then she started again, but she hadn’t 
been under way a minute before I had given 
over attending to her. I was listening to the 
lad.” 

The priest stopped again abruptly. His 
pipe had gone out, but he sucked at it hard 
and seemed not to notice it. His eyes were 
oddly alert. 

“As I listened I looked toward the door 
into the next room. Both that and the one 
with the gallery over the hall were open, and 
I saw the mist coming in like smoke. 

“I couldn’t catch every word the lad said. 
He was talking in a high, droning voice, but 
I caught enough. It was about a face look- 
ing at him through smoke. 

“ ‘His eyes are like flames,’ he said, 


200 A Mirror of Shalott 

‘smoky flames — yellow hair — are you a 
priest? . . . What is that red dress?’ . . . 
Things like that. Well, it seemed pretty tol- 
erable nonsense, and then I ” 

Monsignor Maxwell sat up suddenly. 

“Good Lord!” he said. 

“Yes,” drawled the Canadian, “ Stetit 
Angelus habens thuribulum aureum ” 

He spoke so placidly that I was almost 
shocked. It seemed astonishing that a man — 
Then he went on again. 

“Well, I stood up when I heard that, and 
I faced the old lady. 

“ ‘What’s the dedication of the chapel?’ I 
said; ‘what’s the saint? Tell me, woman, 
tell me!’ There! I said it like that. 

“Well, she didn’t know what I meant, of 
course, but I got it out of her at last. Of 
course, it was St. Michael’s. 

“I sat down then and let her chatter on. 
I suppose I must have looked a fool, because 
she took me by the shoulder directly. 

“ ‘You aren’t listening, Father Jenks,’ she 
said. 


201 


Father Jenks’ Tale 

“I attended to her then. It seemed as if 
she wanted me to do something to save him, 
but I don’t think she knew what it was her- 
self, and I’m sure I didn’t, not at first, at 
least. 

“Then she began again, and all the while 
the boy was crying out. She wanted to know 
if her becoming a Catholic would do any 
good, and to tell the truth I wasn’t so sure 
then myself as I had been before. Then she 
said she’d give up the house to Catholics, and 
then at last she said this: 

“ ‘Will you take it off, Father? I know 
you can. Priests can do anything.’ 

“Well, I stiffened myself up at that. I was 
sensible enough not to make a fool of myself, 
and I said something like this.” 

He stopped again; sucked vigorously at 
his cold pipe. 

“I said something like this: ‘Mind you 
keep your promise,’ I said, ‘but as far as I am 
concerned, I’d let him off.’ ” 

A curious rustle passed round the room, 
and the priest caught the sound. 


202 


A Mirror of Shalott 


“Yes, gentlemen, I said that. I did, in- 
deed, and I guess most of you gentlemen 
would have done the same in my circum- 
stances. 

“And this is what happened. 

“First the lad’s voice stopped, then there 
was a whispering, then a footstep in the other 
room, and the next moment Mrs. Arbuthnot 
was on her feet, with her mouth opened to 
scream. I had her down again though in 
time, and when I turned a woman was at the 
door, and I could see she had closed the outer 
door through which the mist came. 

“Well, her face told us. The lad had taken 
the right turn. It was something on the brain, 
I think, that had dispersed or broken or some- 
thing — I forget now — but it seemed to come 
in pat enough, didn’t it, gentlemen?” 

The Canadian stopped and leaned back. 
“Was that the end then?” 

Father Brent put my question into words : 

“And what happened?” 

“Well,” added the other, drawling more 
than ever, “Mrs. Arbuthnot did not keep her 


Father Jenks* Tale 203 

promise. She’s there still, for all I know, and 
attends the Harvest Festivals as regularly as 
ever. That spoils the story, doesn’t it?” 

“And the son?” put in the English priest 
swiftly. 

“Well, the son was a bit better. That mar- 
riage did not take place. The girl broke it 
off.” 

“Well?” 

“And Archie’s at the English College at 
this moment studying for the priesthood. I 
had tea with him at Aragno’s yesterday.” 


I 



FATHER MARTIN’S TALE 




































VIII 


Father Martin’s Tale 

The Father Rector announced to us one day 
at dinner that a friend of his from England 
had called upon him a day or two before, and 
that he had asked him to supper that evening. 

“There is a story I heard him tell,” he said, 
“some years ago that I think he would contrib- 
ute if you cared to ask him, Monsignor. It 
is remarkable; I remember thinking so.” 

“To-night?” said Monsignor. 

“Yes; he is coming to-night.” 

“That will do very well,” said the other; 
“we have no story for to-night.” 

Father Martin appeared at supper, a gray- 
haired old man with a face like a mouse and 
large brown eyes that were generally cast 
down. He had a way at table of holding his 
hands together with his elbows at his side, 
that bore out the impression of his face. 


2o8 


A Mirror of Shalott 


He looked up deprecatingly and gave a 
little nervous laugh as Monsignor put his re- 
quest. 

“It is a long time since I have told it, Mon- 
signor,” he said. 

“That is the more reason for telling it 
again,” said the other priest with his sharp 
geniality, “or it may be lost to humanity.” 

“It has met with incredulity,” said the 
old man. 

“It will not meet with it here, then,” re- 
marked Monsignor. “We have been practis- 
ing ourselves in the art of believing. Another 
act of faith will do us no harm.” 

He explained the circumstances. 

Father Martin looked round, and I could 
see that he was pleased. 

“Very well, Monsignor,” he said; “I will 
do my best to make it easy.” 

When we had reached the room upstairs 
the old priest was put into the arm-chair in 
the centre, drawn back a little so that all 
might see him; he refused tobacco, propped 


Father Martin’s Tale 209 

his chin on his two hands, looking more than 
ever like a venerable mouse, and began his 
story. I sat at the end of the semicircle, near 
the fire, and watched him as he talked. 

“I regret I have not heard the other tales,” 
he said; “it would encourage me in my own. 
But perhaps it is better so. I have told this 
so often that I can only tell it in one way, and 
you must forgive me, gentlemen, if my way 
is not yours. 

“About twenty years ago I had charge of 
a mission in Lancashire, some fourteen miles 
from Blackburn, among the hills. The name 
of the place is Monkswell ; it was a little vil- 
lage then, but I think it is a town now. In 
those days there was only one street, of per- 
haps a dozen houses on each side. My little 
church stood at the head of the street, with the 
presbytery beside it. The house had a garden 
at the back, with a path running through it 
to the gate; and beyond the gate was a path 
leading on to the moor. 

“Nearly all the village was Catholic, and 


210 


A Mirror of Shalott 


had always been so, and I had perhaps a hun- 
dred more of my folk scattered about the 
moor. Their occupation was weaving; that 
was before the coal was found at Monkswell. 
Now they have a great church there, with a 
parish of over a thousand. 

“Of course I knew all my people well 
enough; they are wonderful folk, those Lan- 
cashire folk ! I could tell you a score of tales 
of their devotion and faith. There was one 
woman that I could make nothing of. She 
lived with her two brothers in a little cottage 
a couple of miles away from Monkswell ; and 
the three kept themselves by weaving. The 
two men were fine lads, regular at their re- 
ligious duties, and at mass every Sunday. 
But the woman would not come near the 
church. I went to her again and again, and 
before any Easter, but it was of no use. She 
would not even tell me why she would not 
come; but I knew the reason. The poor 
creature had been ruined in Blackburn, and 
could not hold up her head again. Her 
brothers took her back, and she had lived with 


Father Martin’s Tale 


21 I 


them for ten years, and never once during 
that time, so far as I knew, had set foot out- 
side her little place. She could not bear to be 
seen, you see.” 

The little pointed face looked very tender 
and compassionate now, and the brown, beady 
eyes ran round the circle deprecatingly. 

“Well, it was one Sunday in January that 
Alfred told me that his sister was unwell. It 
seemed to be nothing serious, he said, and of 
course he promised to let me know if she 
should become worse. But I made up my 
mind that I would go in any case during that 
week and see if sickness had softened her at 
all. Alfred told me, too, that another brother 
of his, Patrick, on whom, let it be remem- 
bered” — and he held up an admonitory hand 
— “I had never set eyes, was coming up to 
them on the next day from London for a 
week’s holiday. He promised he would bring 
him to see me later on in the week. 

“There was a fall of snow that afternoon, 


212 A Mirror of Shalott 

not very deep, and another next day, and I 
thought I would put off my walk across the 
hills until it melted, unless I heard that Sarah 
was worse. 

“It was on the Wednesday evening about 
six o’clock that I was sent for. 

“I was sitting in my study on the ground 
floor with the curtains drawn when I heard the 
garden gate open and close, and I ran out into 
the hall just as the knock came at the back 
door. I knew that it was unlikely that any 
one should come at that hour and in such 
weather except for a sick call, and I opened the 
door almost before the knocking had ended. 

“The candle was blown out by the draught, 
but I knew Alfred’s voice at once. 

“ ‘She is worse, Father,’ he said; ‘for God’s 
sake come at once. I think she wishes for the 
sacraments. I am going on for the doctor.’ 

“I knew by his voice that it was serious, 
though I could not see his face ; I could only 
see his figure against the snow outside, and be- 
fore I could say more than that I would come 
at once he was gone again, and I heard the 


Father Martin’s Tale 213 

garden door open and shut. He was gone 
down to the doctor’s house, I knew, a mile 
further down the valley. 

“I shut the hall door without bolting it and 
went to the kitchen and told my housekeeper 
to grease my boots well and set them in my 
room with my cloak and hat and muffler and 
my lantern. I told her I had had a sick call 
and did not know when I should be back; she 
had better put the pot on the fire, and I would 
help myself when I came home. 

“Then I ran into the church through the 
sacristy to fetch the holy oils and the Blessed 
Sacrament. 

“When I came back I noticed that one of 
the strings of the purse that held the pyx was 
frayed, and I set it down on the table to knot 
it properly. Then again I heard the garden 
gate open and shut.” 

The priest lifted his eyes and looked round 
again ; there was something odd in his look. 

“Gentlemen, we are getting near the point 
of the story. I will ask you to listen very care- 
fully and to give me your conclusions after- 


214 A Mirror of Shalott 

ward. I am relating to you only events as 
they happened historically. I give you my 
word as to their truth.” 

There was a murmur of assent. 

“Well, then,” he went on, “at first I sup- 
posed it was Alfred come back again for some 
reason. I put down the string and went to 
the door without a light. As I reached the 
threshold there came a knocking. 

“I turned the handle and a gust of wind 
burst in as it had done five minutes before. 
There was a figure standing there, muffled up 
as the other had been. 

“ ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘I am just coming. 
Is it you, Alfred ?’ 

“ ‘No, Father,’ said a voice — the man was 
on the steps a yard from me — ‘I came to say 
that Sarah is better and does not wish for 
the sacraments.’ 

“Of course I was startled at that. 

“ ‘Why, who are you?’ I said. ‘Are you 
Patrick?’ 

“‘Yes, Father,’ said the man; ‘I am 
Patrick.’ 


Father Martin’s Tale 


215 

“I cannot describe his voice, but it was not 
extraordinary in any way; it was a little 
muffled; I supposed he had a comforter 
over his mouth. I could not see his face 
at all. I could not even see if he was stout 
or thin, the wind blew about his cloak so 
much. 

“As I hesitated the door from the kitchen 
behind me was flung open, and I heard a very 
much frightened voice calling: 

“ ‘Who’s that, Father?’ said Hannah. 

“I turned round. 

“ ‘It is Patrick Oldroyd,’ I said; ‘he is come 
from his sister.’ 

“I could see the woman standing in the light 
from the kitchen door ; she had her hands out 
before her as if she were frightened at some- 
thing. 

“ ‘Go out of the draught,’ I said. 

“She went back at that, but she did not 
close the door, and I knew she was listening to 
every word. 

“ ‘Come in, Patrick,’ I said, turning round 
again. 


2i 6 A Mirror of Shalott 

“I could see he had moved down a step, 
and was standing on the gravel now. 

“He came up again then, and I stood aside 
to let him go past me into my study. But 
he stopped at the door. Still I could not see 
his face ; it was dark in the hall, you remem- 
ber. 

“ ‘No, Father,’ he said; ‘I cannot wait. I 
must go after Alfred.’ 

“I put out my hand toward him, but he 
slipped past me quickly and was out again on 
the gravel before I could speak. 

“ ‘Nonsense !’ I said. ‘She will be none the 
worse for a doctor, and if you will wait a min- 
ute I will come with you.’ 

“ ‘You are not wanted,’ he said rather 
offensively, I thought. ‘I tell you she is 
better, Father; she will not see you.’ 

“I was a little angry at that. I was not 
accustomed to be spoken to in that way. 

“ ‘That is very well,’ I said; ‘but I shall 
come for all that, and if you do not wish to 
walk with me I shall walk alone.’ 

“He was turning to go, but he faced me 
again then. 


Father Martin’s Tale 217 

“ ‘Do not come, Father,’ he said; ‘come to- 
morrow. I tell you she will not see you. You 
know what Sarah is.’ 

“ ‘I know very well,’ I said; ‘she is out of 
grace, and I know what will be the end of her 
if I do not come. I tell you I am coming, 
Patrick Oldroyd. So you can do as you 
please.’ 

“I shut the door and went back into my 
room, and as I went the garden gate opened 
and shut once more. 

“My hands trembled a little as I began to 
knot the string of the pyx; I supposed then 
that I had been more angered than I had 
known” — the old priest looked round again 
swiftly and dropped his eyes — “but I do not 
now think that it was only anger. However, 
you shall hear.” 

He had moved himself by now to the very 
edge of his chair, where he sat crouched up 
with his hands together. The listeners were 
all very quiet. 

“I had hardly begun to knot the string be- 
fore Hannah came in. She bobbed at the 


2l8 


A Mirror of Shalott 


door when she saw what I was holding, and 
then came forward. I could §ee that she was 
very much upset by something. 

“ ‘Father,’ she said, ‘for the love of God 
do not go with that man.’ ” 

“ ‘I am ashamed of you, Hannah,’ I told 
her. ‘What do you mean?’ 

“ ‘Father,’ she said, ‘I am afraid. I do 
not like that man. There is something the 
matter.’ 

“I rose, laid the pyx down, and went to 
my boots without saying anything. 

“ ‘Father,’ she said again, ‘for the love of 
God do not go. I tell you I was frightened 
when I heard his knock.’ 

“Still I said nothing, but put on my boots 
and went to the table where the pyx lay and 
the case of oils. 

“She came right up to me, and I could see 
that she was as white as death as she stared 
at me. 

“I finished putting on my cloak, wrapped 
the comforter round my neck, put on my hat 
and took up the lantern. 


Father Martin’s Tale 


2 1 9 


u ‘Father/ she said again. 

“I looked her full in the face then as she 
knelt down. 

“ ‘Hannah/ I said, ‘I am going. Patrick 
has gone after his brother.’ 

“ ‘It is not Patrick/ she cried after me; ‘I 
tell you, Father ’ 

“Then I shut the door and left her kneeling 
there. 

“It was very dark when I got down the 
steps, and I hadn’t gone a yard along the path 
before I stepped over my knee into a drift of 
snow. It had banked up against a gooseberry 
bush. Well, I saw that I must go carefully, 
so I stepped back on to the middle of the path, 
and held my lantern low. 

“I could see the marks of the two men plain 
enough; it was a path that I had made broad 
on purpose so that I could walk up and down 
to say my office without thinking much of 
where I stepped. 

“There was one track on this side and one 
on that. 


220 A Mirror of Shalott 

“Have you ever noticed, gentlemen, that a 
man in snow will nearly always go back over 
his own traces in preference to any one else’s? 
Well, that is so, and it was so in this case. 

“When I got to the garden gate I saw that 
Alfred had turned off to the right on his way 
to the doctor; his marks were quite plain in 
the light of the lantern, going down the hill. 
But I was astonished to see that the other man 
had not gone after him as he said he would, 
for there was only one pair of footmarks 
going down the hill, and the other track was 
plain enough, coming and going. The man 
must have gone straight home, I thought. 

“Now ” 

“One moment, Father Martin,” said Mon- 
signor, leaning forward; “draw the two lines 
of tracks here.” 

He put a pencil and paper into the priest’s 
hands. 

Father Martin scribbled for a moment or 
two and then held up the paper so that we 
could all see it. 

As he explained I understood. He had 


Father Martin’s Tale 


221 


drawn a square for the house, a line for the 
garden wall, and through the gap ran four 
lines, marked with arrows. Two ran to the 
house and two back as far as the gate ; at this 
point one curved sharply round to the right 
and one straight across the paper beside that 
which marked the coming. 

“I noticed all this,” said the old priest em- 
phatically, “because I determined to follow 
along the double track so far as Sarah Old- 
royd’s house, and I kept the light turned on to 
it. I did not wish to slip into a snowdrift. 

“Now, I was very much puzzled. I had 
been thinking it over, of course, ever since 
the man had gone, and I could not understand 
it. I must confess that my housekeeper’s 
words had not made it clearer. I knew she 
did not know Patrick; he had never been home 
since she had come to me. I was surprised, 
too, at his behavior, for I knew from his 
brother that he was a good Catholic; and — 
well, you understand, gentlemen, it was very 
puzzling. But Hannah was Irish, and I knew 
they had strange fancies sometimes. 


222 A Mirror of Shalott 

“Then there was something else, which I 
had better mention before I go any further. 
Although I had not been frightened when the 
man came, yet when Hannah had said that she 
was frightened I knew what she meant. It 
had seemed to me natural that she should be 
frightened. I can say no more than that.” 

He threw out his hands deprecatingly, and 
then folded them again sedately on his 
hunched knees. 

“Well, I set out across the moor, following 
carefully in the double track of — of the man 
who called himself Patrick. I could see 
Alfred’s single track a yard to my right; 
sometimes the tracks crossed. 

“I had no time to look about me much, but 
I saw now and again the slopes to the north, 
and once when I turned I saw the lights of 
the village behind me, perhaps a quarter of 
a mile away. Then I went on again, and I 
wondered as I went. 

“I will tell you one thing that crossed my 
mind, gentlemen. I did wonder whether 
Hannah had not been right, and if this was 


Father Martin’s Tale 223 

Patrick after all. I thought it possible — - 
though I must say I thought it very unlikely — 
that it might be some enemy of Sarah’s, some 
one she had offended, an infidel, perhaps, but 
who wished her to die without the sacraments 
that she wanted. I thought that, but I never 
dreamed of — of what I thought afterward 
and think now.” 

He looked round again, clasped his hands 
more tightly and went on. 

“It was very rough going, and as I climbed 
up at last on to the little shoulder of hill that 
was the horizon from my house, I stopped to 
get my breath, and turned round again to 
look behind me. 

“I could see my house lights at the end of 
the village, and the church beside it, and I 
wondered that I could see the lights so plainly. 
Then I understood that Hannah must be in 
my study, and that she had drawn the blind 
up to watch my lantern going across the 
snow. 

“I am ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that 
that cheered me a little; I do not quite know 


A Mirror of Shalott 


224 

why, but I must confess that I was uncomfort- 
able. I know that I should not have been, 
carrying what I did, and on such an errand, 
but I was uneasy. It seemed very lonely out 
there, and the white sheets of snow made it 
worse. I do not think that I should have 
minded the dark so much. There was not 
much wind and everything was very quiet. 
I could just hear the stream running down in 
the valley behind me. The clouds had gone, 
and there was a clear night of stars over- 
head.” 

The old priest stopped; his lips worked a 
little as I had seen them before two or three 
times during his story. Then he sighed, 
looked at us and went on. 

“Now, gentlemen, I entreat you to believe 
me. This is what happened next. You re- 
member that this point at which I stopped to 
take breath was the horizon from my house. 
Notice that. 

“Well, I turned round and lowered my 
lantern again to look at the tracks, and a yard 
in front of me they ceased. They ceased!” 


Father Martin’s Tale 225 

He paused again, and there was not a sound 
from the circle. 

“They ceased, gentlemen; I swear it to you, 
and I cannot describe what I felt. At first 
I thought it was a mistake; that he had leaped 
a yard or two ; that the snow was frozen. It 
was not so. 

“There a yard to the right were Alfred’s 
tracks, perfectly distinct, with the toes point- 
ing the way from which I had come. There 
was no confusion, no hard or broken ground; 
there was just the soft surface of the snow, 
the trampled path of — of the man’s footsteps 
and mine and Alfred’s a yard or two 
away.” 

The old man did not look like a mouse now ; 
his eyes were large and bright, his mouth 
severe, and his hands hung in the air in a 
petrified gesture. 

“If he had leaped,” he said, “he did not 
alight again.” 

He passed his hand over his mouth once 
or twice. 


226 A Mirror of Shalott 

“Well, gentlemen, I confess that I hesi- 
tated. I looked back at the lights and then 
on again at the slopes in front, and then I was 
ashamed of myself. I did not hesitate long, 
for any place was better than that. I went 
on ; I dared not run, for I think I should have 
gone mad if I had lost self-control; but I 
walked, and not too fast, either; I put my 
hand on the pyx as it lay on my breast, but I 
dared not turn my head to right or left. I 
just stared at Alfred’s tracks in front of me 
and trod in them. 

“Well, gentlemen, I did run the last hun- 
dred yards; the door of the Oldroyds’ cottage 
was open, and they were looking out for me, 
and I gave Sarah the last sacraments, and 
heard her confession. She died before morn- 
ing. 

“And I have one confession to make my- 
self — I did not go home that night. They 
were very courteous to me when I told them 
the story, and made out that they did not wish 
me to leave their sister; so the doctor and 
Alfred walked back over the moor together to 


Father Martin’s Tale 227 

tell Hannah I should not be back, and that 
all was well with me. 

“There, gentlemen.” 

“And Patrick?” said a voice. 

“Patrick, of course, had not been out that 
night.” 
























t 




/ 









































MR. BOSANQUET’S TALE 



IX 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 

I think that it was on the second Sunday 
evening that Father Brent brought in his 
guest. There was a function of some kind at 
S. Silvestro — I forget the occasion; a Cardi- 
nal had given Benediction, and a reception 
was to follow. At any rate, there were only 
three of us at home, the German, Father 
Brent, and myself. 

Of course, we talked of our symposium, 
and the guest, a middle-aged layman, seemed 
to listen with interest, but he did not say very 
much. He was a brown-bearded man ; he ate 
slowly and deliberately, and I must confess 
that I was not particularly impressed with 
him. Neither did Father Brent try to draw 
him out. I noticed that he looked at him 
questioningly once or twice, but he did not 
actually express his thought till after a little 
speech from Father Stein. 


A Mirror of Shalott 


232 

“But it is a little tiresome to me,” said the 
German, “this talk of footsteps and voices 
and visions. If that world in which we be- 
lieve is spiritual, as we know it is, how is it 
that it presents itself to us under material 
images? These things are but appearances, 
but what is the reality?” 

Father Brent turned to his friend. 

“Well,” he said, “what now?” 

Mr. Bosanquet smiled and became grave 
again over his pastry. 

“You will repeat it then?” persisted the 
priest. 

The Englishman looked up for an instant, 
and I met his grave eyes. 

“If these gentlemen really wish it,” he said 
briefly. 

Father Brent sighed with satisfaction. 

“That is excellent,” he said. 

Then he explained. 

Mr. Bosanquet had a story, it seemed, but 
had entirely refused to relate it to a mixed 
company. He had had a certain experience 
once which had changed his life, and it was 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 233 

not an experience to be described at random. 
There was no ghost in it; it was wholly unsen- 
sational, but it had, Father Brent thought, a 
peculiar interest of its own. He had per- 
suaded his friend to sup with us, knowing that 
we should be but few, and hoping that the 
atmosphere might be found favorable. This 
was the gist of what he was saying, but he 
was interrupted by the entrance of Beppo 
with the coffee. 

“Shall we have coffee upstairs?” he said. 

Then we rose and went upstairs. 

9}C 5^ Sf 4 * sfc 

It was a few minutes before we settled 
down, and Mr. Bosanquet seemed in no hurry 
to begin. But a silence fell presently, and 
finally the young priest leaned forward. 

“Now, Bosanquet,” he said. 

Mr. Bosanquet set his cup down, crossed 
his legs, and began. He spoke in a very 
quiet, unemotional voice. 

“My friend has told you that this expe- 
rience of mine is unsensational. In a manner 
of speaking he is right. It is unsensational, 


234 A Mirror of Shalott 

since it deals with nothing other than that 
which we must all go through sooner or later ; 
but I think it has a certain interest from the 
fact that it is an experience of which, except 
under very peculiar circumstances, none of us 
will ever be able to give an account. It con- 
cerns the act of dying. . . .” 

He paused for a moment. 

“Yes; the act of dying,” he repeated; “for 
I firmly believe that that is precisely what I 
did. I passed the point at which death is 
dogmatically declared by the doctors to have 
taken place. I underwent, that is, what is 
called ‘legal death,’ but I did not, of course, 
reach that further state called ‘somatic 
death.’ ” 

Father Brent voiced my question. 

“Please explain,” he said. 

“Oh, well, the body, as we know, consists 
of cells; but there is a certain unity, usually 
identified with the vital principle, which 
merges these into one entity, so that if one 
member suffer, all the members suffer with it. 
Legal death is when this vital principle leaves 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 235 

the body. The lungs cease to act; the heart 
is motionless. But when this has taken place 
there yet remains a further stage. The cells, 
for a certain period, have a kind of life of 
their own. There is no vital union between 
them; the nerve system is suspended; and 
somatic death, marked by the rigor mortis, 
the stiffening of the cells, indicates the 
moment when the cells, too, even individually, 
cease to live. But the man is dead, doctors 
tell us, sometimes many hours before rigor 
mortis sets in. In fact, in the case of some 
of the saints, rigor mortis appears never to 
have set in at all; their limbs, we are told, 
retain softness and elasticity. There is no 
corruption, at least in the ordinary ‘sense.’ ” 

Father Brent grunted and nodded. 

“In my case,” pursued the Englishman, 
“I was declared dead, and, as I learned after- 
ward, remained in that state about half an 
hour. It was after my body had been washed 
and the face bound up that I returned to life.” 

I sat up in my chair at that. At least he 
was explicit enough. He glanced at me. 


236 A Mirror of Shalott 

“I can show you my death certificate if 
you care to come to my hotel to-morrow,” he 
said. “I obtained it from the doctor — can- 
celled, however, you understand. 

“Well, this is what took place. 

“The cause of death was exhaustion, fol- 
lowing upon angina pectoris, with other com- 
plications. I will spare you the details and 
begin at once at the point at which I was de- 
clared to be dying. Up to that point I had 
suffered extraordinary agony, tempered by 
morphia. I did not know that such pain was 
possible. ... At the moments of the spasms, 
before each injection took effect, it seemed to 
me that I did not suffer pain so much as be- 
came pain. There was no room for anything 
else but pain. Then there came the begin- 
ning of the dulness of it; it retired and stood 
off from me. I was still conscious of it, as 
of a storm passing away, till all sank into a 
kind of peace. Then, after a long while as 
it seemed, the dulness lifted, and I came up 
again to the surface, becoming aware of the 
world, though of course this bore a certain 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 237 

aspect of unreality, owing to the effects of 
the drug. ... 

“Well, I said I would leave all that 
out. . . . 

“The last time I came up I knew I was 
dying. It was all quite different. Things no 
longer bore that close relation to me that they 
had had before. I opened my eyes just 
enough to let me see my hands lying out on 
the counterpane, and the hillock of my feet, 
and even the lower part of the brass supports 
at the end of my bed ; but I could not raise my 
eyelids higher, and almost immediately I 
closed them again. 

“The sense of touch, too, was changed. . . . 
Once or twice when I have been falling 
asleep in my chair I have noticed the same 
phenomenon. I could not tell by feeling, un- 
less I moved them, whether my fingers rested 
on the counterpane or not. I did move them, 
with that curious clawing motion that dying 
people use, simply in order to realize my rela- 
tions with material surroundings. That, of 
course, as I know now, is the reason of those 


238 A Mirror of Shalott 

motions. It is not an involuntary contrac- 
tion of the muscles; it is the will trying to 
get back into touch with the world. 

“But the sense of hearing, oddly enough, 
was almost preternaturally acute. Others 
undergoing anaesthetics have told me the 
same. It is the last sense to leave them and 
the first to return. I could hear a continual 
minute series of sounds, not at all painfully 
loud, but absolutely distinct. There was my 
sister’s breathing, irregular and uneven, be- 
side me. I knew by it that she was trying not 
to break down. I could hear four timepieces 
ticking — her watch and the doctor’s and that 
of the traveling-clock over the fire and the 
Dutch clock in the hall below. Then there 
were the country sounds in the distance and 
the breeze in the creepers outside my win- 
dow. 

“With regard to taste and smell, they were 
there, a kind of sour sweetness, if I may say 
so; but they did not interest me; they were 
below my level, if I may express it like 
that. . . . 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 239 

“Well, I said just now that I knew I was 
dying. It was as if through all my being 
there was a steady, smooth retirement from 
the world. I was perfectly able to reflect — 
in fact, I reflected as I have never been able to 
before or since. Do you know the sensation 
of coming down from town and sitting out in 
the darkness after dinner in the garden? The 
silence, after the clatter and glare of London, 
makes it possible, seems to let the mind free. 
One is both alert and reflective — both at once. 
It was rather like that, only far more pro- 
nounced. And in that freedom from the pres- 
sure of matter I realized perfectly what was 
happening. 

“Now, I must tell you at once that I was 
not at all frightened. My religion seemed to 
stand off from me with the rest of the world. 
I had been up to that time what may be called 
a ‘conventional believer.’ I had never 
doubted exactly, for/I always realized that it 
was absurd for me to criticise what was so ob- 
viously the highest standard of morality and 
faith — I mean Christianity. But neither was 


A Mirror of Shalott 


240 

I particularly interested. I had lived like 
other people. I attended church, I repeated 
my prayers, and I had conventional views of 
heaven, with which was mixed up a good deal 
of agnosticism. In a word, I think I may say 
that I had hope, but not faith, that is, as you 
Catholics seem to have it.” 

This was the first hint I had had that Mr. 
Bosanquet was not a Catholic, and I glanced 
up at Father Brent. He, too, glanced at 
me in a half-warning, half-suggestive look. 
I understood. 

“I was not frightened, then,” continued the 
other tranquilly. “My religion, as I see now, 
was altogether bound up with the world. 
Even my thoughts went no further than 
images. I conceived of heaven as in a pic- 
ture, of Our Lord as a superhuman Man, of 
death as of a swift passage through the air. 
. . . We are all bound, of course, by our 
limitations to do that; but I had not realized 
the inadequacy of such images.; I conceived 
of eternity and spiritual existence in terms of 
time and space, and I had not really even as 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 241 

much faith as that of the agnostic who recog- 
nizes that these are inadequate, and therefore 
foolishly believes that the reality is unknow- 
able — as in one sense indeed it is.” 

Once more the German priest murmured, 
and I saw now why this man had been en- 
couraged to tell his story. 

“Well, then,” he continued, “when the 
world retired from me with the approach of 
death, my religion retired naturally with it 
(that seems to me so obvious now!), and I 
was left, moving swiftly inward , if I may 
express it so, toward a state of which I was 
completely ignorant. I was dying as I sup- 
pose animals die. I never lost self-conscious- 
ness for a moment. As a rule, of course, one 
realizes self-consciousness, as philosophers tell 
us, by self-differentiation from what is not self. 
The baby learns it gradually by touching and 
looking. The dying lose it by ceasing to 
touch and see, or, rather, they lose that mode 
of realizing, and enter into themselves in- 
stead. . . . 

“I had then a vague kind of animosity, but 


242 A Mirror of Shalott 

I was perfectly peaceful. I had no particular 
remembrance of sins, no faith or love or hope; 
nothing but a sense of extreme naturalness , if 
I may express it so. It seemed as if I had 
known all this all along, as a stone thrown 
into the air would, if it had consciousness, 
realize the inevitability of its curve as it 
neared the earth. I was to die ; well, that was 
the corollary of having lived ! 

“Well, this inevitable movement inward 
went on, as it seemed to me, very swiftly. 
Each instant that I applied my consciousness 
it seemed to me as if I had gone a great way 
since the previous instant; the only thing that 
astonished me was the distance there was to 
travel. It was a sensation — how shall I ex- 
press it? — a sensation of sinking swiftly into 
an inner depth of which I had not guessed 
the extent. I wondered in a complacent, half- 
curious kind of way as to what exactly would 
be the end, how things would be visualized 
when I passed finally from the body, and such 
things as I pictured, I pictured, of course, in 
terms of time and space. I — I thought my 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 243 

essential self, whatever that was, would at a 
certain moment pass a certain line and emerge 
on the other side; and the things would be 
rather as they had been on earth, thinner . . . 
spiritual. I should see faces, perhaps ; forms, 
places, . . . all in a kind of delicate light. 
. . . What really happened was a complete 
surprise.” 

Mr. Bosanquet paused, and in a meditative 
kind of way winked several times at the fire. 
He showed no emotion. He seemed to me 
merely to be recalling the best phrases to use. 

“Well,” he said, “I have told this story 
before, and each time before telling it I have 
thought that I had got the point and could 
really describe what happened, and each time 
I have been disappointed. ... Of course it 
must be so. There are simply no words or 
illustrations. I must do the best I can. 

“Well, this process went on, and after a 
while I perceived plainly that my senses were 
fading. I believe I opened my eyes ; so I was 
told afterwards — opened them wide; but, at 
any rate, I saw nothing this time except 


244 A Mirror of Shalott 

blurred lines and colors, rather like the re- 
verse side of a carpet. They were rather be- 
wildering; but they soon went, leaving noth- 
ing but a streaked grayness that darkened 
rapidly. 

“I could no longer move my hands, or, in 
fact, recall to myself by feeling any material 
thing at all. I seemed to have lost relations 
with my body. Neither could I move my lips 
or tongue; taste had gone. I don’t think I 
had ever understood before how taste de- 
pends on the will and the movement of 
the tongue — much more so than any of 
the other senses, which are, more or less, 
passive. 

“And then quite suddenly I perceived that 
hearing had ceased also. There had been no 
drumming in my ears, as I had half expected; 
1 think there had been at some time previously 
a clear singing of one high note, which had 
rather bothered me ; and I suppose that it was 
then that hearing had gone, but I did not 
notice it till I thought about it. 

“And then there was one more thing more 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 245 

strange than all. ... I began to perceive that 
my will was not myself. 

“Most of us are accustomed to think that it 
is. It is so closely united with that which is 
the very self that we usually identify them. 
Sometimes we are even more foolish, and 
identify our emotions with ourselves, and think 
that our moods are our character. The fact 
is, of course, that the intellect is the most 
superficial of our faculties; there are simply 
scores of things that we cannot understand in 
the least, but of which for all that we are as 
certain as of our own existence. Next to that 
comes the emotion : it is certainly nearer to us 
than intellect, though not much; and thirdly 
comes the will. 

“Now the will is quite close to us; it is that 
through which we consciously act after hav- 
ing heard the reasons for or against action 
alleged by the other faculties. But the will 
is, after all, a faculty of self — not self itself. 

“I began to see this from the way it was 
laboring, like an exhausted engine; it was 
throbbed and moved; it turned this way and 


246 A Mirror of Shalott 

that, directing the all but dead faculties out- 
side to move in this or that direction — to think 
or to perceive. But I began to see clearly now 
that the real self was something altogether 
apart, existing simply in another mode. There, 
that is the point — in another mode . . . . 

“Now, in this matter I feel hopeless. I 
simply cannot express what I knew, and know, 
to be the central fact of our existence. I can 
say no more than that. Self, that which lies 
far behind everything else, exists in as differ- 
ent a mode from all else, as — as the inner 
meaning of a phrase of music is apart from 
the existence of a dog walking up the street. 
There is simply no common term which can be 
applied to them both. 

“Well, I perceived my will to be laboring, 
very slowly and clumsily, and I perceived that 
it would not be able to move much longer. 
(You must understand that this ‘perceiving’ 
as I call it was not the act of my intellect; it 
was simply a deep intuitive knowledge dwell- 
ing in that which I call Self.) 

“Then I suddenly became aware that it 


Mr. Bosanquet's Tale 247 

was important for my will to fall in the right 
direction; I understood that this would make 
— well, the whole difference to me. ... I 
knew that this would be my last conscious 
act. . . . 

“You ask me how I knew what was the 
right direction. Well, I must go slowly 
here. . . . ” 

He paused for a moment, then he went on 
very slowly, picking his words. 

“I began, I think I may say, to be clearly 
and vividly conscious of two centres; there 
was Self, and there was Another. This Other 
was at present completely hidden from me ; I 
was only aware of it as one may be aware of 
the presence of a huge personality behind 
an impenetrable curtain. But I perceived 
that this Other was the only important 
thing. . . . 

“Well, my will was reeling; there was no 
discomfort, no fear, or pain, or anxiety, and 
I — whatever that is — watched it as a man 
may watch a top in its last swift twistings on 
its side. I had still some control over it; I 


248 A Mirror of Shalott 

knew that it was my will ; it still was linked to 
me in a way. . . . Then I put out my energy 
(remember, there was no conscious perception 
of anything; nothing but a perfectly blind in- 
stinct) and tried to wrench that rolling thing 
round to a position of rest — ah! how shall I 
put it? — a position of rest pointing toward 
this other centre. 

“And as I made that effort I lost touch with 
it. I have no idea whether I succeeded, and 
at the same instant, if I may call it so, some- 
thing happened.” 

Mr. Bosanquet leaned back and sighed. 

“Every word is wrong,” he said; “you un- 
derstand that, do you not?” 

I nodded two or three times. I kept my 
eyes on his face. He glanced round at the 
other two. Then he went on, shifting his 
attitude a little. 

“Well, this something — I suppose I could 
give half a dozen illustrations, but none of 
them would be adequate. Let me give you 
two or three. 

“When a man falls in love suddenly his 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 249 

whole centre changes. Up to that point he 
has probably referred everything to himself — 
considered things from his own point. When 
he falls in love the whole thing is shifted; he 
becomes a part of the circumference — per- 
haps even the whole circumference; some one 
else becomes the centre. For example, things 
he hears and sees are referred in future in- 
stantly to this other person; he ceases to be 
acquisitive; his entire life, if it is really love, 
is pulled sideways; he does not desire to get, 
but to give. That is why it is the noblest 
thing in the world. 

“Secondly, imagine that you had lived all 
your life in a certain house, and had got to 
know every detail of it perfectly; you had 
walked about in the garden, too, and looked 
through the railings, and thought you knew 
pretty fairly what the country was like. Then 
one morning, after you had got up and 
dressed, you went to your bedroom door, 
opened it, and went out, and that very in- 
stant found yourself not in the passage, but 
on the top of a high mountain with a strange 


250 A Mirror of Shalott 

country visible for miles all round, and no 
house or human being near you. 

“Thirdly (and this perhaps is the best 
illustration after all), imagine that you were 
looking at a picture, and had become absorbed 
in it, and then without any warning at all the 
picture suddenly became a chord of music 
which you heard, and which you recognized to 
be identical with the picture — not merely 
analogous to it, but the actual picture trans- 
lated, transubstantiated, and transacciden- 
tated into sound. 

“Now, those are the three illustrations I 
generally use in telling this story; there are 
others, but I think these are the best. 

“Well, it was like that; but you must please 
to remember that these are only like charcoal 
sketches of something which is color rather 
than shape. But briefly, those are the nearest 
similitudes I can think of. 

“First, although I remained the same, I be- 
came aware that I simply was not the centre 
of what I experienced. It was not I who 
primarily existed at all. There was Some- 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 251 

thing — I call it Something, because the word 
Person simply bears no resemblance to the 
Personality of this Other Existence; at least, 
no more than a resemblance, because this 
Other Personality was as different from and 
as far above our own as the personality of a 
philosopher is different from the correspond- 
ing thing in a people. I became aware — at 
least, this was what I told myself afterwards 
— I became aware of real Existence for the 
first time in my experience. I myself then be- 
came merely a speck in a circumference, yet — 
and this is why I spoke of love — I also be- 
came aware that while I had not lost my indi- 
viduality, yet this Other Being was the only 
thing that mattered at all, and, further — well, 
I may as well say it outright, that in the very 
depth of this Existence was Human Nature; 
yes, Human Nature. I knew it instantly. I 
never before had had the faintest idea of what 
the Incarnation really meant. 

“Secondly, the whole of everything was 
different — as startlingly different as the 
change of my second illustration. I had ex- 


A Mirror of Shalott 


252 

pected to find a kind of continuation. There 
was, in one sense, no continuation at all; noth- 
ing in the least like what experience had led 
me to expect. It was completely abrupt. 

“Thirdly, in another sense, what I found 
was not only the consequence of what had pre- 
ceded, it was not simply the result, but it was 
identical with what had preceded. It was the 
picture becoming sound — the essence of my 
previous life was here in other terms. It 
simply was. The whole thing was complete. 
You may call this Judgment; well, that will 
do ; but it was a Judgment in which there was 
no question of concurrence or protest. It was 
inevitably true. 

“Let me take even one more illustration. 

“Once I went with my brother into a glass- 
house in autumn. He smelled a certain 
flower, and then rather excitedly asked me to 
smell it. I shut my eyes and smelled it. Prac- 
tically instantly the whole thing became sound 
and sight. I saw the terrace at home in sum- 
mer, and heard the bees. I looked up. 

“ ‘Well?’ he said. 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 253 

“ ‘The terrace in summer,’ I said. 

“ ‘Exactly.’ 

“Well, it was like that. There was no 
question about it. 

“Now, I have taken some time to tell this; 
but I must make it clear that there was abso- 
lutely no time in the experience — no sense of 
progression. It was not merely that I was 
absorbed, but that time had no existence. 
This is how I knew it. 

“Simultaneously with all this I heard one 
noise; and immediately time began — I began 
to consider. Presently I heard another noise, 
then another, like a great drum being beaten. 
Then the noises went, and there was absolute 
silence of which I was aware; and others came 
in — a rustling, a footstep, the sound of words. 
1 was entirely absorbed in these. I heard the 
sound of water, a door opening, the ticking of 
a clock. I was conscious of no consideration 
about these things, and no sensation of any 
kind; it was as if my brain had become one 
ear which heard. This went on — well, I may 
say it was ten seconds or ten years. Time 


254 A Mirror of Shalott 

meant nothing to me. I only knew even now 
that it existed because one thing followed an- 
other. I did not reflect at all. 

“At last, after this had gone on, it was as 
if a new note had struck; another sense began 
to move, the sense of sight. I first became 
aware of darkness, then came a glimmer, with 
a sensation of flickering. Then touch. I be- 
came aware of a constraint somewhere in the 
universe; it was a long time before I knew 
that I myself was feeling it. I did not per- 
ceive sensation ; I was it. 

“Well, these waxed and waxed; then my 
will stirred; and I became aware that I could 
choose, that I could acquiesce or resent. 
Then emotion, and I found myself disliking 
certain sensations. Then I began to wonder 
and question again, and ask myself why and 
what ” 

Mr. Bosanquet broke off abruptly. 

“Well, I needn’t go on. To put it in a 
word, I was coming back to ordinary life. 
Half an hour after the doctor had said that I 
was dead, and about three minutes after the 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 255 

nurse had finished with me — just as she was 
looking at me, in fact, before going out of 
the room — I made a sound with my lips. The 
rest happened as you would expect ; there was 
nothing interesting in that. 

“But this is the point I want to make clear. 
Those noises I heard like a drum followed by 
the silence were without doubt the sounds my 
own body made in dying. 

“It was at that point that I died; and the 
next sounds that I began to hear were the 
noises the nurse made in washing me and lay- 
ing me out. There is no question about that. 
I asked about all the details minutely. 

“But the thing that seemed to me so 
strange at first was the fact that I had died 
‘before’ that, as we say. That complete 
change of the mode of existence undoubtedly 
marked death, and the particular instant of 
death must have been that at which I became 
aware of the change, and of the severance of 
my will from myself. 

“But I understood it presently. The ex- 
planation, I think, must be this. 


256 A Mirror of Shalott 

“There is always a certain space of time be- 
tween an incident happening and our percep- 
tion of it — infinitesimally small if we are ob- 
serving it, but yet it is there. Well, when I 
made that final effort of will I died, but dying 
had begun before that. I had only regarded 
dying from the purely internal side; it took 
in my soul the form of severance from my 
will. At that same instant, since we must 
speak in terms of time, I was in the spiritual 
mode of existence, where there is simply no 
time but which includes all time and all one’s 
previous experience; and in practically the 
same ‘instant’ I was back again, and experienc- 
ing the physical phenomena of dying. The 
drum-note was either my throat or heart, I 
suppose; the silence that followed was the 
body’s perception of death worked out in 
terms of time. 

“We may say, then, this, impossible as it 
sounds — that death had taken place at a given 
moment in time; that that inner real self be- 
hind the will which I have spoken of simultan- 
eously experienced severance from the body, 


Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale 257 

and was immediately in its own mode of 
existence, which, although reckoned as time, 
was an instant; was, in fact, simply eternity 
with its inevitable consequences. But after 
eternity had been experienced — since I sup- 
pose again I must say ‘after’ — it ceased to be 
experienced; and all this was enacted in time. 
Then ” 

Mr. Bosanquet sat up, smiling suddenly. 

“It is useless; I am boring you.” 

I roused myself to answer with an energy 
I had not expected. 

“No; please ” 

“Well, in one sentence: Then I died.” 

He leaned back with an air of finality. 

“But — but one question,” I protested, “you 
spoke of Judgment. Was the result happi- 
ness or unhappiness?” 

He shook his head, smiling. 











FATHER MACCLESFIELD’S TALE 


X 


Father Macclesfield’s Tale 

Monsignor Maxwell announced next day 
at dinner that he had already arranged for the 
evening’s entertainment. A priest whose ac- 
quaintance he had made on the Palatine was 
leaving for Sngland the next morning, and 
it was our only chance, therefore, of hearing 
his story. That he had a story had come to 
the Canon’s knowledge in the course of a con- 
versation on the previous afternoon. 

“He told me the outline of it,” he said; “I 
think it very remarkable. But I had a great 
deal of difficulty in persuading him to repeat 
it to the company this evening. However, he 
promised at last. I trust, gentlemen, you do 
not think I have presumed in begging him to 
do so.” 

* * * * * 

Father Macclesfield arrived at supper. 

He was a little, unimposing, dry man, with 


262 A Mirror of Shalott 

a hooked nose and gray hair. He was rather 
silent at supper, but there was no trace of 
shyness in his manner as he took his seat 
upstairs, and without glancing round once 
began in an even and dispassionate voice : 

“I once knew a Catholic girl that married 
an old Protestant three times her own age. I 
entreated her not to do so, but it was useless. 
And when the disillusionment came she used 
to write to me piteous letters, telling me that 
her husband had in reality no religion at all. 
He was a convinced infidel, and scouted even 
the idea of the soul’s immortality. 

“After two years of married life the old 
man died. He was about sixty years old, but 
very hale and hearty till the end. 

“Well, when he took to his bed the wife 
sent for me, and I had half a dozen interviews 
with him, but it was useless. He told me 
plainly that he wanted to believe — in fact, he 
said that the thought of annihilation was in- 
tolerable to him. If he had had a child he 
would not have hated death so much; if his 
flesh and blood in any manner survived him 


Father Macclesfield’s Tale 263 

he could have fancied that he had a sort of 
vicarious life left; but as it was, there was no 
kith or kin of his alive, and he could not bear 
that.” 

Father Macclesfield sniffed cynically and 
folded his hands. 

“I may say that his deathbed was extremely 
unpleasant. He was a coarse old fellow, with 
plenty of strength in him, and he used to make 
remarks about the churchyard and — and, in 
fact, the worms, that used to send his poor 
child of a wife half fainting out of the room. 
He had lived an immoral life, too, I gathered. 

“Just at the last it was — well, disgusting. 
He had no consideration. God knows why 
she married him ! The agony was a very long 
one ; he caught at the curtains round the bed, 
calling out, and all his words were about death 
and the dark. It seemed to me that he caught 
hold of the curtains as if to hold himself into 
this world. And at the very end he raised 
himself clean up in bed and stared horribly 
out of the window that was open just opposite. 

“I must tell you that straight away beneath 


264 A Mirror of Shalott 

the window lay a long walk between sheets 
of dead leaves with laurels on either side and 
the branches meeting overhead, so that it was 
very dark there even in summer, and at the 
end of the walk away from the house was 
the churchyard gate.” 

Father Macclesfield paused and blew his 
nose. Then he went on, still without looking 
at us. 

“Well, the old man died, and he was 
carried along this laurel path and buried. 

“His wife was in such a state that I simply 
dared not go away. She was frightened to 
death; and, indeed, the whole affair of her 
husband’s dying was horrible. But she would 
not leave the house. She had a fancy that it 
would be cruel to him. She used to go down 
twice a day to pray at the grave ; but she never 
went along the laurel walk. She would go 
round by the garden and in at a lower gate 
and come back the same way, or by the upper 
garden. 

“This went on for three or four days. The 
man had died on a Saturday and was buried 


Father Macclesfield’s Tale 265 

on Monday; it was in July, and he had died 
about eight o’clock. 

“I made up my mind to go on the Saturday 
after the funeral. My curate had managed 
alone very well for a few days, but I did not 
like to leave him for a second Sunday. 

“Then on the Friday at lunch — her sister 
had come down, by the way, and was still in 
the house — on the Friday the widow said 
something about never daring to sleep in the 
room where the old man had died. I told her 
it was nonsense, and so on ; but you must re- 
member she was in a dreadful state of nerves, 
and she persisted. So I said I would sleep in 
the room myself. I had no patience with such 
ideas then. 

“Of course she said all sorts of things, but 
I had my way and my things were moved in 
on Friday evening. 

“I went to my new room about a quarter 
before eight to put on my cassock for dinner. 
The room was very much as it had been — 
rather dark because of the trees at the end of 
the walk outside. There was the four-poster, 


266 


A Mirror of Shalott 


there with the damask curtains, the table and 
chairs, the cupboard where his clothes were 
kept, and so on. 

“When I went to put my cassock on I went 
to the window to look out. To the right and 
left were the gardens, with the sunlight just 
off them, but still very bright and gay with the 
geraniums, and exactly opposite was the laurel 
walk, like a long, green shady tunnel, dividing 
the upper and lower lawns. 

“I could see straight down it to the church- 
yard gate, which was about a hundred yards 
away, I suppose. There were limes overhead 
and laurels, as I said, on each side. 

“Well, I saw some one coming up the walk, 
but it seemed to me at first that he was drunk. 
He staggered several times as I watched — 
I suppose he would be fifty yards away — and 
once I saw him catch hold of one of the trees 
and cling to it as if he were afraid of falling. 
Then he left it and came on again slowly, 
going from side to side, with his hands out. 
He seemed desperately keen to get to the 
house. 


Father Macclesfield’s Tale 267 

“I could see his dress, and it astonished me 
that a man dressed so should be drunk, for he 
was quite plainly a gentleman. He wore a 
white top hat and a gray cutaway coat and 
gray trousers, and I could make out his white 
spats. 

“Then it struck me he might be ill, and I 
looked harder than ever, wondering whether 
I ought to go down. 

“When he was about twenty yards away he 
lifted his face, and it struck me as very odd; 
but it seemed to me he was extraordinarily 
like the old man we had buried on Monday; 
but it was darkish where he was, and the next 
moment he dropped his face, threw up his 
hands, and fell flat on his back. 

“Well, of course I was startled at that, and 
I leaned out of the window and called out 
something. He was moving his hands, I 
could see, as if he were in convulsions, and I 
could hear the dry leaves rustling. 

“Well, then I turned and ran out and 
downstairs.’’ 

Father Macclesfield stopped a moment. 


268 


A Mirror of Shalott 


“Gentlemen,” he said abruptly, “when I got 
there there was not a sign of the old man. I 
could see that the leaves had been disturbed, 
but that was all.” 

There was an odd silence in the room as 
he paused, but before any of us had time to 
speak he went on. 

“Of course, I did not say a word of what 
I had seen. We dined as usual. I smoked 
for an hour or so by myself after prayers and 
then I went up to bed. I cannot say I was per- 
fectly comfortable, for I was not, but neither 
was I frightened. 

“When I got to my room I lit all my 
candles and then went to a big cupboard I had 
noticed and pulled out some of the drawers. 
In the bottom of the third drawer I found a 
gray cutaway coat and gray trousers ; I found 
several pairs of white spats in the top drawer 
and a white hat on the shelf above. That is 
the first incident.” 

“Did you sleep there, Father?” said a voice 
softly. 

“I did,” said the priest; “there was no 


Father Macclesfield’s Tale 269 

reason why I should not. I did not fall asleep 
for two or three hours, but I was not dis- 
turbed in any way and came to breakfast as 
usual. 

“Well, I thought about it all a bit, and 
finally I sent a wire to my curate telling him 
I was detained. I did not like to leave the 
house just then.” 

Father Macclesfield settled himself again 
in his chair and went on in the same dry, un- 
interested voice. 

“On Sunday we drove over to the Catholic 
church, six miles off, and I said mass. Noth- 
ing more happened till the Monday evening. 

“That evening I went to the window again 
about a quarter before eight, as I had done 
both on the Saturday and Sunday. Every- 
thing was perfectly quiet till I heard the 
churchyard gate unlatch and I saw a man 
come through. 

“But I saw almost at once that it was not 
the same man I had seen before; it looked 
to me like a keeper, for he had a gun across 
his arm; then I saw him hold the gate open 


2jo A Mirror of Shalott 

an instant, and a dog came through and began 
to trot up the path toward the house with his 
master following. 

“When the dog was about fifty yards away 
he stopped dead and pointed. 

“I saw the keeper throw his gun forward 
and come up softly, and as he came the dog 
began to slink backward. I watched very 
closely, clean forgetting why I was there, and 
the next instant something — it was too 
shadowy under the trees to see exactly what 
it was — but something about the size of a 
hare burst out of the laurels and made 
straight up the path, dodging from side to 
side, but coming like the wind. 

“The beast could not have been more than 
twenty yards from me when the keeper fired, 
and the creature went over and over in the 
dry leaves and lay struggling and screaming. 
It was horrible ! But what astonished me was 
that the dog did not come up. I heard the 
keeper snap out something, and then I saw the 
dog making off down the avenue in the direc- 
tion of the churchyard as hard as he could go. 


Father Macclesfield’s Tale 271 

“The keeper was running now toward me, 
but the screaming of the hare, or of what- 
ever it was, had stopped, and I was astonished 
to see the man come right up to where the 
beast was struggling and kicking and then 
stop as if he were puzzled. 

“I leaned out of the window and called to 
him. 

“ ‘Right in front of you, man,’ I said; ‘for 
God’s sake kill the brute.’ 

“He looked up at me and then down again. 

“ ‘Where is it, sir?’ he said; ‘I can’t see it 
anywhere.’ 

“And there lay the beast clear before him 
all the while not a yard away, still kicking. 

“Well, I went out of the room and down- 
stairs and out to the avenue. 

“The man was standing there still, looking 
terribly puzzled, but the hare was gone. 
There was not a sign of it. Only the leaves 
were disturbed, and the wet earth showed be- 
neath. 

“The keeper said that it had been a great 
hare ; he could have sworn to it, and that he 


A Mirror of Shalott 


272 

had orders to kill all hares and rabbits in the 
garden enclosure. Then he looked rather 
odd. 

“ ‘Did you see it plainly, sir,’ he asked. 

“I told him not very plainly; but I thought 
it a hare, too. 

“ ‘Yes, sir,’ he said; ‘it was a hare, sure 
enough ; but do you know, sir, I thought it to 
be a kind of silver-gray, with white feet. I 
never saw one like that before !’ 

“The odd thing was that not a dog would 
come near. His own dog was gone, but I 
fetched the yard dog, a retriever, out of his 
kennel in the kitchen yard, and if ever I saw 
a frightened dog it was this one. When we 
dragged him up at last, all whining and pull- 
ing back, he began to snap at us so fiercely 
that we let go, and he went back like the wind 
to his kennel. It was the same with the 
terrier. 

“Well, the bell had gone, and I had to go in 
and explain why I was late; but I didn’t say 
anything about the color of the hare. That 
was the second incident.” 


Father Macclesfield’s Tale 273 

Father Macclesfield stopped again, smil- 
ing reminiscently to himself. I was very 
much impressed by his quiet air and com- 
posure. I think it helped his story a good 
deal. 

Again, before we had time to comment or 
question, he went on. 

“The third incident was so slight that I 
should not have mentioned it, or thought any- 
thing of it, if it had not been for the others; 
but it seemed to me there was a kind of 
diminishing gradation of energy which ex- 
plained. Well, now you shall hear. 

“On the other nights of that week I was 
at my window again, but nothing happened 
till the Friday. I had arranged to go for 
certain next day; the widow was much better 
and more reasonable, and even talked of 
going abroad herself in the following week. 

“On that Friday evening I dressed a little 
earlier and went down to the avenue this 
time, instead of staying at my window, at 
about twenty minutes to eight. 

“It was rather a heavy, depressing evening, 


274 A Mirror of Shalott 

without a breath of wind, and it was darker 
than it had been for some days. 

“I walked slowly down the avenue to the 
gate and back again; and I suppose it was 
fancy, but I felt more uncomfortable than I 
had felt at all up to then. I was rather re- 
lieved to see the widow come out of the house 
and stand looking down the avenue. I came 
out myself then and went toward her. She 
started rather when she saw me and then 
smiled. 

“ ‘I thought it was some one else,’ she 
said. ‘Father, I have made up my mind to 
go. I shall go to town to-morrow, and start 
on Monday. My sister will come with me.’ 

“I congratulated her, and then we turned 
and began to walk back to the lime avenue. 
She stopped at the entrance, and seemed un- 
willing to come any further. 

“ ‘Come down to the end,’ I said, ‘and 
back again. There will be time before dinner.’ 

“She said nothing, but came with me, and 
we went straight down to the gate and then 
turned to come back. 


Father Macclesfield’s Tale 275 

“I don’t think either of us spoke a word; 
I was very uncomfortable indeed by now, and 
yet I had to go on. 

“We were half way back, I suppose, when 
I heard a sound like a gate rattling; and I 
whisked round in an instant, expecting to see 
some one at the gate. But there was no one. 

“Then there came a rustling overhead in 
the leaves; it had been dead still before. 
Then, I don’t know why, but I took my friend 
suddenly by the arm and drew her to one 
side out of the path, so that we stood on the 
right hand, not a foot from the laurels. 

“She said nothing, and I said nothing; but 
I think we were both looking this way and 
that, as if we expected to see something. 

“The breeze died, and then sprang up 
again, but it was only a breath. I could hear 
the living leaves rustling overhead, and the 
dead leaves underfoot, and it was blowing 
gently from the churchyard. 

“Then I saw a thing that one often sees; 
but I could not take my eyes off it, nor could 
she. It was a little column of leaves, twisting 


276 A Mirror of Shalott 

and turning and dropping and picking up 
again in the wind, coming slowly up the path. 
It was a capricious sort of draught, for the 
little scurry of leaves went this way and that, 
to and fro across the path. It came up to 
us, and I could feel the breeze on my hands 
and face. One leaf struck me softly on the 
cheek, and I can only say that I shuddered as 
if it had been a toad. Then it passed on. 

“You understand, gentlemen, it was pretty 
dark; but it seemed to me that the breeze 
died and the column of leaves — it was no 
more than a little twist of them — sank down 
at the end of the avenue. 

“We stood there perfectly still for a 
moment or two, and when I turned she was 
staring straight at me, but neither of us said 
one word. 

“We did not go up the avenue to the house. 
We pushed our way through the laurels and 
came back by the upper garden. 

“Nothing else happened; and the next 
morning we all went off by the eleven o’clock 
train. 


“That is all, gentlemen.” 


FATHER STEIN’S TALE 














XI 


Father Stein’ s Tale 

Old Father Stein was a figure that greatly 
fascinated me during my first weeks in Rome, 
after I had got over the slight impatience that 
his personality roused in me. He was slow of 
speech and thought and movement, and had 
that distressing grip of the obvious that is 
characteristic of the German mind. I soon 
rejoiced to look at his heavy face, generally 
unshaven, his deep twinkling eyes, and the 
ponderous body that had such an air of eternal 
immovability, and to watch his mind, as 
through a glass case, laboring like an engine 
over a fact that he had begun to assimilate. 
He took a kind of paternal interest in me, too, 
and would thrust his thick hand under my 
arm as he stood by me, or clap me heavily on 
the shoulder as we met. But he was excel- 
lently educated, had seen much of the world, 
although always through a haze of the 


280 


A Mirror of Shalott 


Fatherland that accompanied him every- 
where, and had acquired an exceptional 
knowledge of English during his labors in a 
London mission. He used his large vocabu- 
lary with a good deal of skill. 

I was pleased then when Monsignor an- 
nounced on the following evening that Father 
Stein was prepared to contribute a story. But 
the German, knowing that he was master of 
the situation, would utter nothing at first but 
hoarse ejaculations at the thought of his 
reminiscences, and it was not until we had 
been seated for nearly half an hour before the 
fire that he consented to begin. 

“It is of a dream,” he said; “no more than 
that; and yet dreams, too, are under the hand 
of the good God, so I hold. Some, I know, are 
just folly, and tell us nothing but the con- 
fusion of our own nature when the controlling 
will is withdrawn; but some, I hold, are the 
whispers of God, and tell us of what we are 
too dull to hear in our waking life. You do 
not believe me ? Very well ; then listen. 


Father Stein’s Tale 


281 


“I knew a man in Germany, thirty years 
ago, who had lived many years away from 
God. He had been a Catholic, and was well 
educated in religion till he grew to be a lad. 
Then he fell into sin, and dared not confess 
it; and he lied, and made bad confessions, and 
approached the altar so. He once went to a 
strange priest to tell his sin, and dared not 
when the time came; and so added sin to sin, 
and lost his faith. It is ever so. We know it 
well. The soul dare not go on in that state, 
believing in God, and so by an inner act of 
the will renounces Him. It is not true, it is 
not true, she cries; and at last the voice of 
faith is silent and her eyes blind.” 

The priest stopped and looked round him, 
and the old Rector nodded once or twice and 
murmured assent. 

“For twenty years he had lived so, without 
God, and he was not unhappy; for the powers 
of his soul died one by one, and he could no 
longer feel. Once or twice they struggled, in 
their death agony, and he stamped on them 
again. Once, when his mother died, he nearly 


282 


A Mirror of Shalott 


lived again; and his soul cried once more 
within him, and stirred herself; but he would 
not hear her; it is useless, he said to her; there 
is no hope for you; lie still; there is nothing 
for you; you are dreaming; there is no life 
such as you think; and he trampled her again, 
and she lay still.” 

We were all very quiet now. I certainly 
had not suspected such passion in this old 
priest; he had seemed to me slow and dull 
and not capable of any sort of delicate 
thought or phrase, far less of tragedy; but 
somehow now his great face was lighted up, 
his eyebrows twitched as he talked, and it 
seemed as if we were hearing of a murder 
that this man had seen for himself. Mon- 
signor sat perfectly motionless, staring in- 
tently into the fire, and Father Brent was 
watching the German sideways; Father Stein 
took a deliberate pinch of snuff, snapped his 
box, and put it away, and went on. 

“This man had lived on the sea coast as a 
child, but was now in business in a town on 
the Rhine, and had never visited his old home 


Father Stein’s Tale 283 

since he left it with his mother on his father’s 
death. He was now about thirty-five years of 
age, when God was gracious to him. He was 
living in a cousin’s house, with whom he was 
partner. 

“One night he dreamed he was a child, and 
walking with one whom he knew was his sis- 
ter who had died before he was born, but he 
could not see her face. They were on a 
white, dusty road, and it was the noon of a 
hot summer day. There was nothing to be 
seen round him but great slopes of a dusty 
country with dry grass, and the burning sky 
overhead, and the sun. He was tired, and his 
feet’ached, and he was crying as he walked, 
but he dared not cry loud for fear that his 
sister would turn and look at him, and he 
knew she was a — a revenant, and did not 
wish to see her eyes. There was no wind and 
no birds and no clouds ; only the grasshoppers 
sawed in the dry grass, and the blood 
drummed in his ears until he thought he 
would go mad with the noise. And so they 
walked, the boy behind his sister, up a long 


284 A Mirror of Shalott 

hill. It seemed to him that they had been 
walking so for hours, for a lifetime, and that 
there would be no end to it. His feet sank 
to the ankles in dust, the sun beat on to his 
brain from above, the white road glared 
from below, and the tears ran down his 
cheeks. 

“Then there was a breath of salt wind in 
his face, and his sister began to go faster, 
noiselessly; and he tried, too, to go faster, 
but could not; his heart beat like a hammer in 
his throat, and his feet lagged more and more, 
and little by little his sister was far in front, 
and he dared not cry out to her not to leave 
him for fear she should turn and look at him ; 
and at last he was walking alone, and he dared 
not lie down or rest. 

“The road passed up a slope, and when he 
reached the top of it at last he saw her again, 
far away, a little figure that turned to him and 
waved its hand, and behind her was the blue 
sea, very faint and in a mist of heat, and then 
he knew that the end of the bitter journey was 
very near. 


Father Stein’s Tale 285 

“As he passed up the last slope the sea-line 
rose higher against the sky, but the line was 
only as the fine mark of a pencil where sea and 
sky met, and a dazzling white bird or two 
passed across it and then dropped below the 
cliff. By the time he came near his sister the 
dusty road had died away into the grass, and 
he was walking over the fresh turf that felt 
cool to his hot feet He threw himself down 
on the edge of it by his sister, where she was 
lying with her head on her hands looking out 
at the sea where it spread itself out, a thou- 
sand feet below; and still he had not seen her 
face. 

“At the foot of the cliff was a little white 
beach, and the rocks ran down into deep water 
on every side of it, and threw a purple shadow 
across the sand; there were birds here, too, 
floating out from the cliff and turning and re- 
turning; and the sea beneath them was a clear 
blue, like a Cardinal’s ring that I saw once, 
and the breeze blew up from the water and 
made him happy again.” 

Father Stein stopped again, with something 


286 A Mirror of Shalott 

of a sob in his old heavy voice, and then he 
turned to us. 

“You know such dreams,” he said; “I can- 
not tell it as — as he told me; but he said it 
was. like the bliss of the redeemed to look 
down on the sea and feel the breeze in his 
hair, and taste its saltness. 

“He did not wish his sister to speak, 
though he was afraid of her no more; and 
yet he knew that there was some secret to be 
told that would explain all — why they were 
here, and why she had come back to him, and 
why the sea was here, and the little beach 
below them, and the wind and the birds. But 
he was content to wait until it was time for 
her to tell him, as he knew she would. It was 
enough to lie here, after the dusty journey, 
beside her, and to wait for the word that 
should be spoken. 

“Now, at first he was so out of breath and 
his heart beat so in his ears that he could hear 
nothing but that and his own panting; but it 
grew quieter soon, and he began to hear some- 
thing else — the noises of the sea beneath him. 


Father Stein’s Tale 287 

It was a still day, but there was movement 
down below, and the surge heaved itself 
softly against the cliff and murmured in deep 
caves below, like the pedal note of the Frank- 
fort organ, solemn and splendid; and the 
waves leaned over and crashed gently on the 
sand. It was all so far beneath that he saw 
the breaking wave before the sound came up 
to him, and he lay there and watched and lis- 
tened; and that great sound made him hap- 
pier even than the light on the water and the 
coolness and rest; for it was the sea itself 
that was speaking now. 

u Then he saw suddenly that his sister had 
turned on her elbow and was looking at him; 
and he looked into her eyes, and knew her, 
though she had died before he was born. 
And she, too, was listening, with her lips 
parted, to the sound of the surge. And now 
he knew that the secret was to be told; and he 
watched her eyes, smiling. And she lifted her 
hand, as if to hold him silent, and waited, 
and again the sweet murmur and crash rose 
up from the sea, and she spoke softly. 


288 A Mirror of Shalott 

“ ‘It is the Precious Blood,’ she said.” 

Father Stein was silent, and we all were 
silent for a while. As far as I was concerned, 
at least, the story had somehow held me with 
an extraordinary fascination, I scarcely knew 
why. 

There was a movement among the others, 
and presently the Frenchman spoke. 

“Et puis?” he said. 

“The man awoke,” said Father Stein, “and 
found tears on his face.” 

* * * * * 

It was such a short story that there were 
still a few minutes before the time for night- 
prayers, and we sat there without speaking 
again until the clock sounded in the campanile 
overhead, and the Rector rose and led the 
way into the west gallery of the church. I 
saw Father Stein waiting at the door for me 
to come up, and I knew why he was waiting. 

He took my arm in his thick hand and held 
it a moment as the others passed down the 
two steps. 

“I was that man,” he said. 


MR. PERCIVAL’S TALE 



















XII 


Mr. PercivaVs Tale 

When I came in from mass into the refectory 
on the morning following Father Stein’s 
story, I found a layman breakfasting there 
with the Father Rector. We were introduced 
to each other, and I learned that Mr. Percival 
was a barrister, who had arrived from Eng- 
land that morning on a holiday, and was to 
stay at St. Filippo for a fortnight. 

I yield to none in my respect for the clergy; 
at the same time a layman feels occasionally 
something of a pariah among them. I sup- 
pose this is bound to be so, otherwise I was 
pleased then to find another dog of my breed 
with whom I might consort, and even howl, 
if I so desired. I was pleased, too, with his 
appearance. He had that trim, academic 
air that is characteristic of the Bar, in spite 
of his twenty-two hours’ journey, and was 


292 A Mirror of Shalott 

dressed in an excellently made gray suit. 
He was very slightly bald on his forehead, 
and had those sharp-cut, mask-like features 
that mark a man as either lawyer, priest or 
actor; he had, besides, delightful manners and 
even, white teeth. I do not think I could have 
suggested any improvements in person, be- 
havior, or costume. 

By the time that my coffee had arrived the 
Father Rector had run dry of conversation, 
and I could see that he was relieved when I 
joined in. 

In a few minutes I was telling Mr. Percival 
about the symposium we had formed for the 
relating of preternatural adventures, and I 
presently asked him whether he had ever had 
any experience of the kind. 

He shook his head. 

“I have not,” he said in his virile voice; 
“my business takes my time.” 

“I wish you had been with us earlier,” put 
in the Rector. “I think you would have been 
interested.” 

“I am sure of it,” he said. “I remember 


Mr. PercivaPs Tale 293 

once — but you know, Father, frankly I am 
something of a sceptic.” 

“You remember?” I suggested. 

He smiled very pleasantly with eyes and 
mouth. 

“Yes, Mr. Benson; I was once next door 
to such a story. A friend of mine saw some- 
thing; but I was not with him at the moment.” 

“Well, we thought we had finished last 
night,” I said; “but do you think you would 
be too tired to entertain us this evening?” 

“I shall be delighted to tell the story,” he 
said easily. “But indeed I am a sceptic in 
this matter; I cannot dress it up.” 

“We want the naked fact,” I said. 

I went sight-seeing with him that day, and 
found him extremely intelligent and at the 
same time accurate. The two virtues do not 
run often together, and I felt confident that 
whatever he chose to tell us would be salient 
and true. I felt, too, that he would need few 
questions to draw him out; he would say 
what there was to be said unaided. 

When we had taken our places that night 


294 A Mirror of Shalott 

he began by again apologizing for his attitude 
of mind. 

“I do not know, reverend Fathers,” he 
said, “what are your own theories in this mat- 
ter; but it appears to me that if what seems 
to be preternatural can possibly be brought 
within the range of the natural, one is bound 
scientifically to treat it in that way. Now in 
this story of mine — for I will give you a few 
words of explanation first in order to preju- 
dice your minds as much as possible — in this 
story the whole matter might be accounted 
for by the imagination. My friend, who saw 
what he saw, was under rather theatrical cir- 
cumstances, and he is an Irishman. Besides 
that, he knew the history of the place in which 
he was; and he was quite alone. On the other 
hand, he has never had an experience of the 
kind before or since; he is perfectly truthful, 
and he saw what he saw in moderate daylight. 
I give you these facts first, and I think you 
would be perfectly justified in thinking they 
account for everything. As for my own 
theory, which is not quite that, I have no idea 


Mr. Percival’s Tale 295 

whether you will agree or disagree with it. I 
do not say that my judgment is the only sensi- 
ble one, or anything offensive like that. I 
merely state what I feel I am bound to accept 
for the present.” 

There was a murmur of assent. Then he 
crossed his legs, leaned back and began : 

“In my first summer after I was called to 
the Bar I went down South Wales for a holi- 
day with another man who had been with me 
at Oxford. His name was Murphy; he is a 
J.P. now, in Ireland, I think. I cannot think 
why we went to South Wales; but there it is. 
We did. 

“We took the train to Cardiff, sent on our 
luggage up the Taff Valley to an inn of which 
I cannot remember the name, but it was close 
to where Lord Bute has a vineyard. Then 
we walked up to Llandaff, saw St. Tylo’s 
tomb, and went on again to this village. 

“Next morning we thought we would look 
about us before going on, and we went out for 
a stroll. It was one of the most glorious 


296 A Mirror of Shalott 

mornings I ever remember, quite cloudless 
and very hot, and we went up through woods 
to get a breeze at the top of the hill. 

“We found that the whole place was full of 
iron mines, disused now, as the iron is richer 
further up the country ; but I can tell you that 
they enormously improved the interest of the 
place. We found shaft after shaft, some pro- 
tected and some not, but mostly overgrown 
with bushes, so we had to walk carefully. We 
had passed half a dozen, I should think, be- 
fore the thought of going down one of them 
occurred to Murphy. 

“Well, we got down at last, though I 
rather wished for a rope once or twice, and I 
think it was one of the most extraordinary 
sights I have ever seen. You know, perhaps, 
what the cave of a demon-king is like in the 
first act of a pantomime. Well, it was like 
that. There was a kind of blue light that 
poured down the shafts, refracted from sur- 
face to surface, so that the sky was invisible. 
On all sides passages ran into total darkness; 
huge reddish rocks stood out fantastically 


Mr. Percival’s Tale 297 

everywhere in the pale light; there was a 
sound of water falling into a pool from a 
great height, and presently, striking matches 
as we went, we came upon a couple of lakes 
of marvelously clear blue water, through 
which we could see the heads of ladders 
emerging from other black holes of unknown 
depth below. 

“We found our way out after a while into 
what appeared to be the central hall of the 
mine. Here we saw plain daylight again, 
for there was an immense round opening at 
the top, from the edges of which curved 
among the sides of the shaft, forming a huge 
circular chamber. 

“Imagine the Albert Hall roofless; or, bet- 
ter still, imagine Saint Peter’s with the top 
half of the dome removed. Of course, it was 
far smaller, but it gave an impression of great 
size, and it could not have been less than two 
hundred feet from the edge, over which we 
saw the trees against the sky, to the tumbled, 
dusty, rocky floor where we stood. 

“I can only describe it as being like a great 


298 A Mirror of Shalott 

burnt-out hell in the Inferno . Red dust lay 
everywhere; escape seemed impossible; and 
vast crags and galleries, with the mouths of 
passages showing high up, marked by iron 
bars and chains, jutted out here and there. 

“We amused ourselves here for some time 
by climbing up the sides, calling to one an- 
other, for the whole place was full of echoes, 
rolling down stones from some of the upper 
edges ; but I nearly ended my days there. 

“I was standing on a path, about seventy 
feet up, leaning against the wall. It was a 
path along which feet must have gone a thou- 
sand times when the mine was in working 
order, and I was watching Murphy, who was 
just emerging onto a platform opposite me, 
on the other side of the gulf. 

“I put my hand behind me to steady my- 
self, and the next instant very nearly fell for- 
ward over the edges at the violent shock to my 
nerves given by a wood-pigeon who burst out 
of a hole, brushing my hand as he passed. I 
gripped on, however, and watched the bird 
soar out across space, and then up and out 


Mr. Percivars Tale 299 

at the opening; and then I became aware that 
my knees were beginning to shake. So I 
stumbled along, and threw myself down on 
the little platform onto which the passage 
led. 

“I suppose I had been more startled than I 
knew, for I tripped as I went forward, and 
knocked my knee rather sharply on a stone. 
I felt for an instant quite sick with the pain 
on the top of jangling nerves, and lay there 
saying what I am afraid I ought not to have 
said. 

“Then Murphy came up when I called, 
and we made our way together through one 
of the sloping shafts, and came out onto the 
hillside among the trees.” 

Mr. Percival paused; his lips twitched a 
moment with amusement. 

“I am afraid I must recall my promise,” 
he said. “I told you all this because I was 
anxious to give a reason for the feeling I had 
about the mine, and which I am bound to 
mention. I felt I never wanted to see the 
place again — yet in spite of what followed 


A Mirror of Shalott 


3 °° 

I do not necessarily attribute my feelings to 
anything but the shock and the pain that I 
had had. You understand that?” 

His bright eyes ran round our faces. 

“Yes, yes,” said Monsignor sharply; “go 
on, please, Mr. Percival.” 

“Well, then!” 

The lawyer uncrossed his legs and placed 
them the other way. 

“During lunch we told the landlady where 
we had been, and she begged us not to go 
there again. I told her that she might rest 
easy; my knee was beginning to swell. It 
was a wretched beginning to a walking tour. 

“It was not that, she said; but there had 
been a bad accident there. Four men had been 
killed there twenty years before by a fall of 
rock. That had been the last straw on the 
top of ill-success, and the mine had been 
abandoned. 

“We inquired as to details, and it seemed 
that the accident had taken place in the central 
chamber, locally called ‘The Cathedral,’ and 
after a few more questions I understood. 


Mr. PercivaPs Tale 301 

“ ‘That was where you were, my friend,’ I 
said to Murphy; ‘it was where you were when 
the bird flew out.’ 

“He agreed with me, and presently when 
the woman was gone announced that he was 
going to the mine again to see the place. 
Well, I had no business to keep him dangling 
about. I couldn’t walk anywhere myself, so 
I advised him not to go on to that platform 
again, and presently he took a couple of 
candles from the sticks and went off. He 
promised to be back by four o’clock, and I 
settled down rather drearily to a pipe and 
some old magazines. 

“Naturally, I fell sound asleep. It was a 
hot, drowsy afternoon and the magazines were 
dull. I awoke once or twice, and then slept 
again deeply. 

“I was awakened by the woman coming in 
to ask whether I would have tea; it was 
already five o’clock. I told her Yes. I was 
not in the least anxious about Murphy; he 
was a good climber, and therefore neither a 
coward nor a fool. 


A Mirror of Shalott 


302 

“As tea came in I looked out of the window 
again and saw him walking up the path, cov- 
ered with iron dust, and a moment later I 
heard his step in the passage, and he came in. 

“Mrs. What’s-her-name had gone out. 

“ ‘Have you had a good time?’ I asked. 

“He looked at me very oddly and paused 
before he answered. 

“ ‘Oh, yes,’ he said; and put his cap and 
stick in a corner. 

“I knew Murphy. 

“ ‘Well, why not?’ I asked him, beginning 
to pour out tea. 

“He looked round at the door, then he sat 
down without noticing the cup I pushed across 
to him. 

“ ‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘I think I am 
going mad.’ 

“Well, I forget what I said, but I under- 
stood that he was very much upset about 
something, and I suppose I said the proper 
kind of thing about his not being a damned 
fool. 

“Then he told me his story.” 


Mr. Percival’s Tale 


3°3 

Mr. Percival looked round at us again, still 
with that slight twitching of the lips that 
seemed to signify amusement. 

“Please remember — ” he began, and then 
broke off. No; I won’t ” 

“Well. 

“He had gone down the same shaft that 
we went down in the morning, and had spent 
a couple of hours exploring the passages. He 
had found an engine-room with tanks and 
rotten beams in it and rusty chains. He had 
found some more lakes, too, full of that ex- 
traordinary electric-blue water; he had dis- 
turbed a quantity of bats somewhere else. 
Then he had come out again into the central 
hall, and on looking at his watch had found 
it after four o’clock, so he thought he would 
climb up by the way we had come in the morn- 
ing and go straight home. 

“It was as he climbed that his odd sensa- 
tions began. As he went up, clinging with 
his hands, he became perfectly certain that he 
was being watched. He couldn’t turn round 
very well, but he looked up as he went to the 


304 A Mirror of Shalott 

opening overhead, but there was nothing there 
but the dead-blue sky, and the trees very green 
against it, and the red rocks awning away on 
every side. It was extraordinarily quiet, he 
said; the pigeons had not come home from 
feeding, and he was out of hearing of the 
dripping water that I told you of. 

“Then he reached the platform and the 
opening of the path where I had my fright in 
the morning, and turned round to look. 

“At first he saw nothing peculiar. The 
rocks up which he had come fell away at his 
feet down to the floor of the ‘Cathedral’ and 
to the nettles with which he had stung his 
hands a minute or two before. He looked 
around at the galleries overhead and opposite, 
but there was nothing there. 

“Then he looked across at the platform 
where he had been in the morning and where 
the accident had taken place. 

“Let me tell you what this was like. It 
was about twenty yards in breadth and ten 
deep, but lay irregular and filled with tumbled 
rocks. It was a little below the level of his 


Mr. Percival’s Tale 305 

eyes, right across the gulf, and in a straight 
line would be about fifty or sixty yards away, 
It lay under the roof, rather retired, so that 
no light from the sky fell directly on to it; 
it would have been in complete twilight if it 
hadn’t been for a shaft smaller above it, which 
shot down a funnel of bluish light, exactly like 
a stage effect. You see, reverend Fathers, it 
was very theatrical altogether. That might 
account, no doubt ” 

Mr. Percival broke off again, smiling. 

“I am always forgetting,” he said. “Well, 
we must go back to Murphy. At first he saw 
nothing but the rocks and the thick, red dust 
and the broken wall behind it. He was very 
honest, and told me that as he looked at it 
he remembered distinctly what the landlady 
had told us at lunch. It was on that little 
stage that the tragedy had happened. 

“Then he became aware that something 
was moving among the rocks, and he became 
perfectly certain that people were looking at 
him ; but it was too dusky to see very clearly 
at first. Whatever it was was in the shadows 


306 A Mirror of Shalott 

at the back. He fixed his eyes on what was 
moving. Then this happened.” 

The lawyer stopped again. 

“I will tell you the rest,” he said, “in his 
own words so far as I remember them. 

“ ‘I was looking at this moving thing,’ he 
said, ‘which seemed exactly of the red color 
of the rocks, when it suddenly came out under 
the funnel of light, and I saw it was a man. 
He was in a rough suit all iron stained, with 
a rusty cap, and he had some kind of a pick 
in his hand. He stopped first in the centre 
of the light, with his back turned to me, and 
stood there looking. I cannot say that I was 
consciously frightened; I honestly do not 
know what I thought he was. I think that 
my whole mind was taken up in watching him. 

“ ‘Then he turned round slowly and I saw 
his face. Then I became aware that if he 
looked at me I should go into hysterics or 
something of the sort, and I crouched down as 
low as I could. But he didn’t look at me ; he 
was attending to something else, and I could 
see his face quite clearly. He had a beard 


Mr. Percival’s Tale 


3°7 

and moustache, rather ragged and rusty; he 
was rather pale, but not particularly. I 
judged him to be about thirty-five.’ Of 
course,” went on the lawyer, “Murphy didn’t 
tell it me quite as I am telling it to you. He 
stopped a good deal; he drank a sip of tea 
once or twice and changed his feet about. 

“Well, he had seen this man’s face very 
clearly, and described it very clearly. 

“It was the expression that struck him 
most. 

“ ‘It was a rather amused expression,’ he 
said; ‘rather pathetic and rather tender, and 
he was looking interestedly about at every- 
thing — at the rocks above and beneath; he 
carried his pick easily in the crook of his arm. 
He looked exactly like a man whom I once 
saw visiting his home where he had lived as a 
child.’ (Murphy was very particular about 
that, though I don’t believe he was right.) 
‘He was smiling a little in his beard and his 
eyes were half shut. It was so pathetic that 
I nearly went into hysterics then and there,’ 
said Murphy. ‘I wanted to stand up and ex- 


308 A Mirror of Shalott 

plain that it was all right, but I knew he knew 
more than I did. I watched him, I should 
think, for nearly five minutes; he went to 
and fro softly in the thick dust, looking here 
and there, sometimes in the shadow and some- 
times out of it. I could not have moved for 
ten thousand pounds and I could not take my 
eyes off him. 

“ ‘Then just before the end I did look away 
from him. I wanted to know if it was all 
real, and I looked at the rocks behind and 
the openings. Then I saw that there were 
other people there ; at least, there were things 
moving of the color of the rocks. 

“‘I suppose I made some sound then; I 
was horribly frightened. At any rate, the 
man in the middle turned right round and 
faced me, and at that I sank down with the 
sweat dripping from me, flat on my face, with 
my hands over my eyes. 

“ ‘I thought of a hundred thousand things 
— of the inn and you and the walk we had 
had — and I prayed — well, I suppose I prayed. 
I wanted God to take me right out of this 


Mr. Percival’s Tale 


3°9 

place. I wanted the rocks to open and let 
me through.’ ” 

Mr. Percival stopped. His voice shook 
with a tiny tremor. He cleared his throat. 

“Well, reverend Fathers, Murphy got up 
at last and looked about him, and of course 
there was nothing there but just the rocks and 
the dust and the sky overhead. Then he came 
away home the shortest way.” 

It was a very abrupt ending, and a little 
sigh ran round the circle. 

Monsignor struck a match noisily and 
kindled his pipe again. 

“Thank you very much, sir,” he said 
briskly. 

Mr. Percival cleared his throat again, but 
before he could speak Father Brent broke in. 

“Now, that is just an instance of what I 
was saying, Monsignor, the night we began. 
May I ask if you really believe that those were 
the souls of the miners? Where’s the justice 
of it? What’s the point?” 

Monsignor glanced at the lawyer. 

“Have you any theory, sir?” he asked. 


310 A Mirror of Shalott 

Mr. Percival answered without lifting his 
eyes. 

“I think so,” he said shortly; “but I don’t 
feel in the least dogmatic.” 

Father Brent looked at him almost indig- 
nantly. 

“I should like to hear it,” he said. “If you 
can square that ” 

“I do not square it,” said the lawyer. “Per- 
sonally I do not believe they were spirits at 
all.” 

“Oh?” 

“No, I do not, though I do not wish to be 
dogmatic. To my mind it seems far more 
likely that this is an instance of Mr. Hudson’s 
theory — the American, you know. His idea 
is that all apparitions are no more than the 
result of violent emotions experienced during 
life. That about the pathetic expression is 
all nonsense, I believe.” 

“I don’t understand,” said Father Brent. 

“Well, these men, killed by the fall of the 
roof, probably went through a violent emotion. 
This would be heightened in some degree by 


Mr. Percivars Tale 31 1 

their loneliness and isolation from the world. 
This kind of emotion, Mr. Hudson suggests, 
has a power of saturating material surround- 
ings, which under certain circumstances would 
once more, like a photograph, give off an 
image of the agent. In this instance, too, the 
absence of other human visitors would give 
this materialized emotion a chance, so to 
speak, of surviving; there would be very few 
cross-currents to confuse it. And finally, 
Murphy was alone; his receptive faculties 
would be stimulated by that fact, and all that 
he saw, in my belief, was the psychical wave 
left by these men in dying.” 

“Oh ! Did you tell him so ?” 

“I did not. Murphy is a violent man.” 

I looked up at Monsignor, and saw him 
nodding emphatically to himself. 










MY OWN TALE 





/ 











XIII 


My Own Tale 

I MUST confess that I was a little taken aback 
on my last evening before leaving for Eng- 
land when Monsignor Maxwell turned on me 
suddenly at supper and exclaimed aloud that 
I had not yet contributed a story. 

I protested that I had none; that I was 
prosaic person; that there was some packing 
to be done; that my business was to write 
down the stories of other people; that I had 
my living to make and could not be liberal 
with my slender store ; that it was a layman's 
function to sit at holy and learned priests’ 
feet, not to presume to inform them on any 
subject under the sun. 

But it was impossible to resist; it was 
pointed out to me that I had listened on false 
pretences if I had not intended to do my 
share, that telling a story did not hinder my 
printing it. And, as a final argument, it was 


316 A Mirror of Shalott 

declared that unless I occupied the chair that 
night all present withdrew the leave that had 
already been given to me to print their stories 
on my return to England. 

There was nothing, therefore, to be done; 
and as I had already considered the possibility 
of the request, I did not occupy an unduly 
long time in pretending to remember what I 
had to say. 

When I was seated upstairs and the fire 
had been poked according to the ritual and 
the matches had gone round, and buckled 
shoes protruded side by side with elastic- 
ankled boots, I began. 

“This is a very unsatisfactory story,” I 
said, “because it has no explanation of any 
kind. It is quite unlike Mr. Percival’s. You 
will see that even theorizing is useless when I 
have come to the end. It is simply a series of 
facts that I have to relate ; facts that have no 
significance except one that is supernatural, 
but it is utterly out of the question even to 
guess at that significance. 

“It is unsatisfactory, too, for a second rea- 


My Own Tale 317 

son, and that is, that it is on such very hack- 
neyed lines. It is simply one more instance 
of that very dreamy class of phenomena, 
named ‘haunted houses,’ except that there is 
no ghost in it. Its only claim to interest is, 
as I have said, the complete futility of any 
attempt to explain it.” 

This was rather a pompous exordium, I 
felt, but thought it best not to raise expecta- 
tions too high, and I was therefore deliber- 
ately dull. 

“Sixteen years ago from last summer I was 
in France. I had left school, where I had la- 
bored two hours a week at French for four 
years, and gone away in order to learn it in 
six weeks. This I accomplished very toler- 
ably, in company with five other boys and 
an English tutor. Our general adventures are 
not relevant, but toward the end of our stay 
we went over one Sunday from Portrieux in 
order to see a French chateau about three 
miles away. 

“It was a really glorious June day, hot and 
fresh and exhilarating, and we lunched de- 


A Mirror of Shalott 


3 i 8 

lightfully in the woods with a funny, fat little 
French count and his wife, who came with us 
from the hotel. It is impossible to imagine 
less uncanny circumstances or companions. 

“After lunch we all went cheerfully to the 
house, whose chimneys we had seen among 
the trees. 

“I know nothing about the dates of houses y 
but the sort of impression I got of this house 
was that it was about three hundred years old ; 
but it may equally have been four, or two. 
I did not know then and do not know now 
anything about it except its name, which I will 
not tell you; and its owner’s name, which I 
will not tell you either, and — and something 
else that I will tell you. We will call the 
owner, if you please, Comte Jean Marie the 
First. The house is built in two courts, the 
right-hand court, through which we entered, 
was then used as a farm-yard; and I should 
think it probable that it is still so used. This 
court was exceedingly untidy. There was a 
large manure heap in the centre, and the ser- 
vants’ quarters to our right looked miserably 


My Own Tale 319 

cared for. There was a cart or two with 
shafts turned up, near the sheds that were 
built against the wall opposite the gate; and 
there was a sleepy old dog with bleared eyes 
that looked at us intensely from his kennel 
door. 

“Our French friend went across to the ser- 
vants’ cottages with his moustache sticking 
out on either side of his face; and presently 
came back with two girls and the keys. 
There was no objection, he exclaimed dra- 
matically, to our seeing the house! 

“The girls went before us, and unlocked 
the iron gate that led to the second court; 
and we went through after them. 

“Now we had heard at the hotel that the 
family lived in Paris; but we were not pre- 
pared for the dreadful desolation of that 
inner court. The living part of the house was 
on our left; and what had once been a lawn 
to our right; but the house was discolored and 
weather-stained; the green paint of the closed 
shutters and door was cracked and blistered; 
and the lawn resembled a wilderness; the 


A Mirror of Shalott 


3 2 ° 

grass was long and rank; there were rose-trees 
trailing along the edge and across the path; 
and a sun-dial on the lawn reminded me 
strangely of a drunken man petrified in the 
middle of a stagger. All this, of course, was 
what was to be expected in an adventure of 
this kind. It would do for a Christmas num- 
ber. 

“But it was not our business to criticize ; and 
after a moment or two, we followed the girls 
who had unlocked the front door and were 
waiting for us t& enter. 

“One of them had gone before to open the 
shutters. 

“It was not a large house, in spite of its 
name, and we had soon looked through the 
lower rooms of it. They, too, were what 
you would expect; the floors were beeswaxed; 
there were tables and chairs of a tolerable 
antiquity; a little damask on the walls and so 
on. But what astonished us was the fact that 
none of the furniture was covered up, or even 
moved aside ; and the dust lay, I should say, 
half an inch thick on every horizontal sur- 


My Own Tale 321 

face. I heard the Frenchman crying on his 
God in an undertone — as is the custom of 
Gauls — ” (I bowed a little to Father 
Meuron) — “and finally he burst out with a 
question as to why the rooms were in this 
state. 

“The girl looked at him stolidly. She was 
a stout, red-faced girl. 

“ ‘It is by the Count’s orders,’ she said. 

“ ‘And does the Count not come here?’ he 
asked. 

“ ‘No, sir.’ 

“Then we all went upstairs. One of the 
girls had preceded us again and was sitting 
with her hand on a door to usher us in. 

“ ‘See here is the room the most splendid!’ 
she said; and threw the door open. 

“It was certainly the room the most splen- 
did. It was a great bed-chamber hung with 
tapestry ; there were some excellent chairs 
with carved legs ; a splendid gold-framed mir- 
ror tilted forward over the carved mantle- 
piece; and, above all, and standing out from 
the wall opposite the window was a great 


322 A Mirror of Shalott 

four-posted bed, with an elaborately carved 
head to it, and heavy curtains hanging from 
the canopy. 

“But what surprised us more than anything 
that we had yet seen, was the sight of the bed. 
Except for the dust that lay on it, it might 
have been slept in the night before. There 
were actually damask sheets upon it, thrown 
back, and two pillows. All gray with dust. 
These were not arranged but tumbled about, 
as a bed is in the morning before it is made. 

“As I was looking at this, I heard a boy 
cry out from the washing-stand. 

“ ‘Why, it has had water in it,’ he 
said. 

“This did not sound exceptional for a 
basin, but we all crowded round to look; and 
it was perfectly true; there was a gray film 
round the interior of it; and when he had dis- 
turbed it as a boy would with his finger we 
could see the flowered china beneath. The line 
came two-thirds of the way up the sides of 
the basin. It must have been partly filled with 
water a long while ago, which gradually 


My Own Tale 323 

evaporated, leaving its mark in the dust that 
must have collected there week after week. 

“The Frenchman lost his patience at that. 

“ ‘My sacred something !’ he said, ‘why is 
the room like this?’ 

“The same girl who had answered him be- 
fore, answered him again in the same words. 
She was standing by the mantle-piece watch- 
ing us. 

“ ‘It is the Count’s orders,’ she said 
stolidly. 

“ ‘It is by the Count’s orders that the bed 
is not made?’ snapped the man. 

“ ‘Yes, sir,’ said the girl simply. 

“Well, that did not content the Frenchman. 
He exhibited a couple of francs and began to 
question. 

“This is the story that he got out of her. 
She told it quite simply. 

“The last time that Count Jean Marie had 
come to the place, it had been for his honey- 
moon. He had come down from Paris with 
his bride. They had dined together down- 
stairs, very happily and gaily; and had slept 


324 A Mirror of Shalott 

in the room in which we were at this moment. 
A message had been sent out for the carriage 
early next morning; and the couple had driven 
away with their trunks leaving their servants 
behind. They had not returned, but a mes- 
sage had come down from Paris that 
the house was to be closed. It appeared 
that the servants who had been left behind 
had had orders that nothing was to be 
tidied; even the bed was not to be made; the 
rooms were to be locked up, and left as they 
were. 

“The Frenchman had hardly been able to 
restrain himself as he heard this unconvincing 
story; though his wife shook him by the 
shoulders at each violent gesture that he 
made, and at the end he had put a torrent of 
questions. 

“ ‘Were they frightened then?’ ” 

“ ‘I do not know, sir.’ 

“ ‘I mean the bride and bridegroom, fool !’ 

“ ‘I do not know, sir.’ 

“ ‘Sacred name ! — and — and — why do you 
not know ?’ 


My Own Tale 325 

u ‘I have never seen any of them, sir.’ 

“ ‘Not seen them ! Why you said just 
now.’ 

“ ‘Yes, sir; but I was not born then. It 
was thirty years ago.’ 

“I do not think I have ever seen people so 
bewildered as we all were. This was entirely 
unexpected. The Frenchman’s jaw dropped; 
he licked his lips once or twice; and turned 
away. We all stood perfectly still a moment, 
and then we went out.” 

I indulged myself with a pause just here. 
I was enjoying myself more than I thought 
I should. I had not told the story for some 
while; and had forgotten what a good one 
it was. Besides, it had the advantage of being 
perfectly true. Then I went on again with a 
pleased consciousness of faces turned to me 
and black-ended cigarettes. 

“I must tell you this,” I said. “I was re- 
lieved to get out of the room. It is sixteen 
years ago now; and I may have embroidered 
on my sensations ; but my impression is that I 


326 A Mirror of Shalott 

had been just a little uncomfortable even be- 
fore the girl’s story. I don’t think that I felt 
that there was any presence there, or anything 
of that kind. It was rather the opposite; it 
was the feeling of an extraordinary empti- 
ness.” 

“Like a Catholic Cathedral in Protestant 
hands,” put in a voice. 

I nodded at the zealous, convert-making 
Father Brent. 

“It was very like that,” I said, “and had, 
too, the same kind of pathos and terror that 
one feels in the presence of a child’s dead 
body. It is unnaturally empty, and yet sig- 
nificant; and one does not quite know what it 
signifies.” 

I paused again. 

“Well, reverend Fathers, that is the first 
Act. We went back to Portrieux; we made 
enquiries and got no answer. All shrugged 
their shoulders, and said that they did not 
know. There were no tales of the bride’s 
hair turning white in the night, or of any 
curse or ghost or noises or lights. It was just 


My Own Tale 327 

as I have told you. Then we went back to 
England; and the curtain came down. 

“Now generally such curtains have no 
resurrection. I suppose we have all had fifty 
experiences of First Acts; and we do not know 
to this day whether the whole play is a 
comedy or a tragedy; or even whether the 
play has been written at all.” 

“Do not be modern and allusive, Mr. Ben- 
son,” said Monsignor. 

“I beg your pardon, Monsignor, I will not. 
I forgot myself. Well, here is the Second 
Act. There are only two, and this is a much 
shorter one. 

“Nine years later I was in Paris, staying in 
the Rue Picot with some Americans. A 
French friend of theirs was to be married to a 
man ; and I went to the wedding at the Made- 
leine. It was — well, it was like all other wed- 
dings at the Madeleine. No description can 
be adequate to the appearance of the officiat- 
ing clergyman and the altar and the brides- 
maids and the French gentlemen with 
polished boots and butterfly ties, and the con- 


328 A Mirror of Shalott 

versation, and the gaiety, and the general im- 
pression of a confectioner’s shop and a mil- 
liner’s and a salon and a holy church. I ob- 
served the bride and bridegroom and forgot 
their names for the twentieth time, and ex- 
changed some remarks in the sacristy; with 
a leader of society who looked like a dissipated 
priest; with my eyes starting out of my 
head in my anxiety not to commit a solecisme or 
a barbarisme . And then we went home again. 

“On the way home we discussed the honey- 
moon. The pair were going down to a coun- 
try house in Brittany. I enquired the name 
of it; and, of course, it was the chateau I had 
visited nine years before. It had been lent 
them by Count Jean Marie the Second. The 
gentleman resided in England, I heard, in 
order to escape the conscription; he was a 
connection of the bride’s; and was about 
thirty years of age. 

“Well, of course, I was interested; and 
made enquiries and related my adventure. 
The Americans were mildly interested, too, 
but not excited. Thirty-nine years is ancient 


My Own Tale 329 

history to that energetic nation.” (I bowed 
to Father Jenks, before I remembered that he 
was a Canadian; and then pretended that I 
had not and went on quickly, and missed a 
dramatic opportunity.) “But two days after- 
ward they were excited. One of the girls 
came into dejeuner, and said that she had met 
the bride and bridegroom dining together in 
the Bois. They had seemed perfectly well; 
and had saluted her politely. It seemed that 
they had come back to Paris after one night 
at the chateau, exactly as another bride and 
bridegroom had done thirty-nine years before. 

“Before I finish let me sum up the situation. 

“In neither case was there apparently any 
shocking incident, and yet something had been 
experienced that broke up plans and sent away 
immediately from a charming house and 
country two pairs of persons who had de- 
liberately formed the intention of living there 
for a while. In both cases the persons in ques- 
tion had come back to Paris. 

“I need hardly say that I managed to call 
with my friends upon the bride and bride- 


A Mirror of Shalott 


33 ° 

groom, and, at the risk of being impertinent, 
asked the bride point-blank why they had 
changed their plans and come back to town. 

She looked at me without a trace of horror 
in her eyes, and smiled a little. 

“‘It was triste/ she said; ‘a little triste. 
We thought we would come away; we de- 
sired crowds.’ 

I paused again. 

“ ‘We desired crowds,’ I repeated. “You 
remember, reverend Fathers, that I had expe- 
rienced a sense of loneliness, even with my 
friends, during five minutes spent in that up- 
stairs room. I can only suppose that if I had 
remained longer I should have experienced 
such a further degree of that sensation that 
I should have felt exactly as those two pairs 
of brides and bridegrooms felt and have come 
away immediately. I might even, if I had 
been in authority, have given orders that 
nothing was to be touched except my own lug- 
gage.” 

“I do not understand that,” said Father 
Brent, looking puzzled. 


My Own Tale 331 

“Nor do I altogether,” I answered; “but 
I think I perceive it to be a fact for all that. 
One might feel that one was an intruder, 
that one had meddled with something that 
desired to be left alone, and that one had bet- 
ter not meddle further in any kind of way.” 

“I suppose you went down there again,” 
observed Monsignor Maxwell. 

“I did; a fortnight afterwards. There was 
only one girl left; the other was married and 
gone away. She did not remember me; it 
was nine years ago, and she was a little redder 
in the face and a little more stolid. 

“The lawn had been clipped and mown, but 
was beginning to grow rank again. Then I 
went upstairs with her. The room was com- 
paratively clean; there was water in the basin; 
and clean sheets on the bed; but there was just 
a little film of dust lying on everything. I 
pretended I knew nothing and asked ques- 
tions; and I was told exactly the same story 
as I had heard nine years before; only this 
time the date was only a fortnight ago. 

“When she had finished she added: 


A Mirror of Shalott 


33 2 

“ ‘It happened so once before, sir; before I 
was born.’ 

“ ‘Do you understand it?’ I said. 

“ ‘No, sir; the house is a little triste per- 
haps. Do you think so, sir?’ 

“I said that perhaps it was. Then I gave 
her two francs and came away. 

“That is all, reverend Fathers.” 

There was silence for a minute. Then 
Padre Bianchi made what I consider a tact- 
less remark. 

“Bah! that does not terrify me,” he said. 

“ ‘Terrify’ is certainly not the word,” re- 
marked Monsignor Maxwell. 

“I am not quite sure about that,” ended 
Father Brent. 

The bell rang for night-prayers. 

“Sum up, Father Rector,” said Monsignor 
without moving. “You have heard all the 
stories and Mr. Benson is going to-morrow.” 

The old priest smiled as he stood up ; and 
was silent for a moment, looking at us all. 


My Own Tale 


333 


“I can only sum up like this, with the senti- 
ments with which Monsignor began,” he said: 
'“The longer I live and the more I hear and 
see, the greater I feel my ignorance to be. I 
heard a man say the other day that Catholics 
were the only genuine agnostics alive; and 
that he respected them for it. They knew 
some things that others did not; but they did 
not pretend to affirm or to deny that of which 
they had no possibility of judging. Is that 
what you meant me to say, Monsignor.” 

Monsignor nodded meditatively. 

“I think that is a sound conclusion,” he 
said. “It is understood then,- Mr. Benson, 
that if you print these stories, you will add 
that not one of us commits himself to belief 
in any of them — except, I suppose, each in 
his own.” 

“I will mention it,” I said.” 

“Perhaps you might say that we do not 
even commit ourselves to our own. You can 
say what you like about yours, of course.” 

“I will mention that, too,” I said, “and I 
will class myself with the rest. The agnostic 


A Mirror of Shalott 


334 

position is certainly the soundest in all matters 
outside the deposit of faith. We all stand, 
then, exactly where we did at the beginning?” 
“Certainly I do,” said Padre Bianchi. 

“We all do,” said a number of voices. 

Then we went to night-prayers together for 
the last time. 


PRINTED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK 


Standard Catholic Books 


PUBLISHED BY 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

CINCINNATI: NEW YORK: Chicago: 

343 MAIN ST. 36 & 38 BARCLAY ST. 2II-2I3 MADISON ST. 


DOCTRINE, INSTRUCTION, DEVOTION. 


Abandonment. Caussade, S.J. net , o 50 

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Tesniere. net , 1 25 

Alphonsus Liguori, Works of St. 22 vols., each, net , 1 50 

Anecdotes and Examples Illustrating the Catholic Cate- 
chism. Spirago. net , 1 50 

Apostles’ Creed, The. Muller, C.SS.R. net , 1 10 

Art of Profiting by Our Faults. Tissot. net , o 50 

Beginnings of Christianity. Shahan. net, 2 00 

Benedicenda: Rules and Ceremonies to be observed in some of 
the Principal Functions of the Roman Pontifical and Ro- 


Rev. A. J. Schulte. 


net , 


Nash. 


net , 


man Ritual. 

Bible History. 

Bible History, Practical Explanation. 

Bible, The Holy. 

Book of the Professed. 

Vol. I. net , 

Vol. II. Vol. III. Each, net , 

Boys and Girls’ Mission Book. Redemptorist Fathers. 

Bread of Life, The. 30 Complete Communion Books, net , 
Catechism Explained, The. Spirago-Clarke. net , 

Catholic Girls’ Guide. Lasance. net , 

Catholic Belief. Faa di Bruno. Paper, 0.25; 100 copies, 15 00 
Cloth, 0.50; 25 copies, # 7 . 5° 

Catholic Ceremonies and Explanation of the Ecclesiastical 


So 

So 

So 

00 

75 

75 

40 

75 

50 

00 


Klauder. 


Year. Durand. Paper, 0.30; 25 copies. 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 

Catholic Practice at Church and at Home. 

Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 

Catholic Teaching for Children. Winifride Wray. 
Catholic Worship. Rev. R. Brennan, LL.D. 

Paper, 0.20; 100 copies, , 

Cloth, 0.30; 100 copies, 

Ceremonial for Altar Boys. Britt, O.S.B. 
Characteristics of True Devotion. Grou, S.J. 


4 50 

9 00 

4 So 
9 00 
o 40 


12 00 
18 00 
O 35 
net , o 75 


Cistercian Order, The. By a Secular Priest. net, 0 60 

Child of Mary. Prayer-Book. 0 60 

Christian Doctrine, Spirago’s Method of. Edited by Bishop 
Messmer. net, 1 50 


3 75 
6 oo 

5 <- 

75 
oo 

IO 

75 
50 
2 5 
50 
50 


Christian Father. Cramer. Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 

Christian Home. McFaul, D.D. 0.10; per 100, 

Christian Mother. Cramer. Paper, 0.25; 25 copies. 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 

Church and Her Enemies. Muller, C.SS.R. net, 

Comedy of English Protestantism. Marshall. net. 

Confession. Paper, 0.05; per 100, net, 

Confession and its Benefits. Girardey. 

Confirmation. Paper, 0.05; per 100, net, 

Communion. Paper, 0.05; per 100, net, 

Consecranda: Rites and Ceremonies observed at the Conse- 
cration of Churches, Altars, Altar Stones and Chalices and 
Patens. Rev. A. J. Schulte. # _ net, 1 50 

Complete Office of Holy Week. 0.50; cheap edition o 25 
Correct Thing for Catholics. Lelia Hardin Bugg. net, o 75 
Devotion of the Holy Rosary and the Five Scapulars, net, o 75 
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Noldin, S. J. 

net, 1 2 5 

Devotions and Prayers for the Sick-Room. Krebs, C.SS.R. 

net, 1 25 

Devotion and Prayers of St. Alphonsus. net, 1 25 

Devotions for First Friday. Huguet. . net, 0 40 

Dignity and Duties of the Priest. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Dignity, Authority, Duties of Parents, Ecclesiastical and 


Psalms and 


net, 1 40 
net, 1 60 
Canticles. 


net, 

net, 

net, 

net, 

net, 

net, 

net, 


50 

25 

10 

25 

75 

00 

00 


Civil Powers. Muller, C.SS.R 
Divine Grace. Wirth. 

Divine Office: Explanations of the 
Liguori. 

Epistles and Gospels. Large Print. 

Eucharist and Penance. Muller, C.SS.R. 

Eucharistic Christ. Tesniere. 

Eucharistic Gems. Coelenbier. 

Explanation of Commandments, Illustrated. 

Explanation of the Apostles' Creed, Illustrated. 
Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doc 
trine. Kinkead. net, 1 00 

Explanation of the Commandments. Muller, C.SS.R. 

net, 1 10 

Explanation of the Gospels and of Catholic Worship. Lam- 
bert. Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

Explanation of the Holy Sacraments, Illustrated, net, 1 00 
Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Cochem. 

net, 1 25 

Explanation of the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Bren- 
nan. net, 0 75 

Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of the Mass, 


net, 1 
net, o 


25 

75 


Illustrated. Rev. D. I. Lanslots, O.S.B. 

Explanation of the Salve Regina. Liguori. 

Explanation and Application of Bible History. 

Rev. John J. Nash, D.D. 

Extreme Unction. Paper, 0.10; 100 copies. 

First and Greatest Commandment. Muller, C.SS.R. net, 1 40 
First Communicant’s Manual. o 50 

Flowers of the Passion. By Rev. Louis Th. de Jesus-Agoni- 
sant. o 50 


Edited by 
net, 1 60 
6 00 


Z 


Following of Christ. Thomas a Kempis. 
With Reflections, 

Without Reflections, 

Edition de luxe, 

Four Last Things, The. 


Death, Judgment, Heaven. Hell. 


o 50 

0 45 

1 25 

„ Med- 

itations. Father M. v. Cochem. Cloth, net, 0 75 

Garland of Prayer. With Nuptial Mass. Leather. o 90 

General Confession Made Easy. Konings, C.SS.R. Flexible, 
0.15; 100 copies, 10 00 

General Principles of the Religious Life. Verheyen. 

net, o 30 

Glories of Divine Grace. Scheeben. net, 1 60 

Glories of Mary. Liguori. 2 vols. net, 3 00 

Popular ed., 1 vol., net, 1 25 

Glories of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, The. Rev. M. Han- 

shew, S.J. net, 1 25 

God the Teacher of Mankind. Muller. 9 vols. Per set, 9 50 

Goffine’s Devout Instructions. 140 Illustrations. Cloth, 1 00 
25 copies, 17 50 

Golden Sands. Little Counsels. 

Third, fourth and fifth series. each, net, o 50 

Grace and the Sacraments. Muller, C.SS.R. net, 1 25 

Great Means of Salvation and Perfection. Liguori. net, 1 50 
Great Supper of God, The. Coube, S.J. Cloth, net, 1 25 
Greetings to the Christ-Child. Poems. Illustrated. o 60 
Guide to Confession and Communion. net, 0 50 

Handbook of the Christian Religion. Wilmers, S.J. 

net, 1 50 

Harmony of the Religious Life. Heuser. 

Help for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. 

Helps to a Spiritual Life. Schneider, S.J. 

Hidden Treasure. By St. Leonard of Port Maurice, net, o 50 
History of the Mass. O’Brien. - — ■ 

Holy Eucharist. Liguori. 

Holy Mass. Muller, C.SS.R. 

Holy Mass. Liguori. 

How to Comfort the Sick. Krebs, C.SS.R. 

How to Make the Mission. By a Dominican Father. Paper’ 
0.10; per 100, 5 00 

Illustrated Prayer-Book for Children. 0.25 

Imitation of Christ. See “ Following of Christ.” 

Imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Bennett-Gladstone. 
Plain Edition, net, 0 50 

Edition de luxe, net, 1 50 

Imitation of the Sacred Heart. Arnoudt, S.J. net, 1 25 

Immaculate Conception, The. Lambing, LL.D. o 35 

Incarnation, Birth, and Infancy of Jesus Christ; or, The 
Mysteries of Faith. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Indulgences, A Practical Guide to. Bernad, O.M.I. net, 0 75 

In Heaven We Know Our Own. Blot, S.J. net, o 60 

Instructions and Prayers for the Catholic Father. Egger. 

, net, o 50 

Instructions and Prayers for the Catholic Mother. Right 
Rev. Dr. A. Egger. net, o 50 

Instructions and Prayers for Catholic Youth. net, o 50 

Instructions for First Communicants. Schmitt. net, 0 60 


net, 1 25 
net, 0 50 
net, 1 25 


net, 1 25 
net, 1 50 
net, 1 25 
net, 1 50 
net, 1 25 


3 


net , 1 

50 

0 

25 

net , 0 

75 

0 

35 

1 7 

50 

0 

25 

18 

00 

0 

25 

net , 0 

25 

20 

00 

net , 0 

25 

20 

00 

0 

05 

2 

5 ® 


Instructions on the Commandments of God and the Sacraments 
of the Church. Liguori 

Paper, 0.25; 100 copies, 12 50 

Cloth, 0.40; 100 copies, 24 00 

Interior of Jesus and Mary. Grou. 2 vols. J 1 ^, 2 00 

Introduction to a Devout Life. By St. Francis de Sales. 

Cloth, net > 0 So 

Lessons of the King. By a Religious of The Society of The 
Holy Child Jesus. 0 ho 

Letters of St. Alphonsus de Liguori. 4 vols., each vol., 

net , 1 50 

Letters of St. Alphonsus Liguori and General Alphabetical 
Index to St. Alphonsus’ Works. 

Little Altar Boys’ Manual. 

Little Book of Superiors. “ Golden Sands.” 

Little Child of Mary. A Small Prayer-Book. 

100 copies, 

Little Manual of St. Anthony. Lasance. 
illustrated, 
per 100, 

Little Manual of St. Joseph. Lings. 

Little Month of May. McMahon. Flexible, 

100 copies, 

Little Month of the Souls in Purgatory. 

100 copies, 

Little Office of the Immaculate Conception. 
per 100, 

Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints. New, cheap edition, 

net , 1 25 

Lives of the Saints. Large Size 1 5® 

Lover of Souls, The. Short Conferences on the Sacred Heart. 

Rev. Henry Brinkmeyer. net , 1 00 

Manual of the Holy Eucharist. Lasance. net , 0 75 

Manual of the Holy Family. net , o 60 

Manual of the Holy Name. o 50 

Manual of the Sacred Heart, New. o 50 

Manual of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. o 50 

Manual of St. Anthony, Little. o 25 

Manual of St. Anthony, New. o 60 

Manual of St. Joseph, Little. Lings. 0 25 

Mari.® Corolla. Poems by Father Edmund. Cloth, net , 1 25 
Mary the Queen. By a Religious of The Society of The Holy 
Child Jesus. o 60 

Mass Devotions and Readings. Lasance. Cloth, net , o 75 

May Devotions, New. Wirth, O.S.B. net , 1 00 

Meditations for all the Days of the Year. Hamon, S.S. 5 
vols., net , s 00 

Mediatations for Every Day in the Year. Baxter, net , 1 50 

Meditations for Every Day in the Year. Vercruysee, 2 
vols., net , 3 50 

Meditations for Retreats. St. Francis de Sales. Cloth, 

net , o 75 

Meditations on the Four Last Things. Cochem. net , o 75 
Meditations on the Last Words from the Cross. Perraud. 

net , 0 50 

Meditations on the Life, the Teachings, and the Passion of 
Jesus Christ. Ilg-Clarke. 2 vols., net , 3 50 


4 


Meditations on the Month of Our Lady. Mullaney. net, o 75 
Meditations on the Passion of Our Lord. o 50 

Method of Christian Doctrine, Spirago’s. net , 1 50 

Middle Ages, The: Sketches and Fragments. Shanan. 

net, 2 00 

Miscellany. Historical Sketch of the Congregation of the Most 
Holy Redeemer. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Mission Book for the Married. Girardey, C.SS.R. o 50 

Mission Book for the Single. Girardey, C.SS.R. o 50 

Mission Book of the Redemptorist Fathers. o 50 

Moments Before the Tabernacle. Russell, S.J. net, o 50 
Month, New, of the Sacred Heart. St. Francis de Sales. 

net, o 2 5 

Month of May: Meditations on the Blessed Virgin. Debussi, 
S.J. net, o 50 

Month of the Souls in Purgatory, “ Golden Sands/’ net, o 25 

Moral Briefs. Stapleton. net, 1 25 

Most Holy Rosary. Meditations. Cramer, D.D. net, o 50 

My First Communion: Happiest Day of My Life. Brennan. 

net, o 75 

My Little Prayer-Book. Illustrated. o 12 

New May Devotions. VVirth. net , 1 oa 

New Month of the Holy Angels. net, o 25 

New Month of the Sacred Heart. net , o 25 

New Sunday-School Companion. o 25 

New Testament. Cheap Edition. 

32mo, flexible cloth, net, o 15 

32mo, lambskin, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net, o 75 

New Testament. Illustrated Edition. 

i6mo, Printed in two colors, with 100 full-page ill., net, o 60 

i6mo, Rutland Roan, limp, solid gold edges, net, 1 25 

New Testament. India Paper Edition. 

American Seal, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net, 0 90 
German Morocco, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net, 1 20 
Best Calf limp, round corners, gold edges, gold roll inside. 

net, 1 50 


New Testament. Large Print Edition. 

i2mo, large, net, o 75 

i2mo, American Seal, limp, gold edges, net, 1 50 

New Testament Studies. Conaty, D.D. i2mo. o 60 

Off to Jerusalem. Marie Agnes Benziger. net, 1 00 

Office, Complete, of Holy Week. o 50 

Cheap Edition. Cloth, cut flush, 0 25 

On the Road to Rome. By W. Richards. net , o 50 

Our Favorite Devotions. Lings. o 75 

Our Favorite Novenas. Lings. net, o 75 


Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano. Dillon, D.D. 


net, o 75 

Our Monthly Devotions. Lings. net, 1 25 

Our Own Will and How to Detect It in Our Actions. Rev. 

John Allen, D.D. net, o 75 

Paradise on Earth Open to all. Natale, S.J. net, o 50 

Parish Priest on Duty, The. Heuser. net, o 60 

Passion, A Few Simple and Business-Like Ways of Devotion 
to the. Hill, C.P. 0.25; per 100, 15 00 

Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. Liguori. net , 1 50 

Passion Flowers. Poems. Father Edmund. net , 1 25 




Thoughts and Affections on the Passion for Every Day of 


the Year. Bergamo. 

Pearls from Faber. Brunowe. 

Pearls of Prayer. 

Pepper and Salt, Spiritual. Stang. 

Cloth, 0.60; 2 5 copies. 

Perfect Religious, The. De la Motte. 

Pictorial Lives of the Saints. 8vo, 

Pious Preparation for First Holy Communion. 
Cloth, 

Pocket Manual. 


net, 2 oo 
net, o 50 
o 35 

Paper, 0.30; 2 5 copies, 
4 50 
9 00 
net, 1 00 
net, 2 00 
Lasance. 
net, o 


Cloth, 


75 

A Vest-pocket Prayer-Book, very large type. 

o 25 

Popular Instructions on Marriage. Girardey, C.SS.R. 

Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 

Popular Instructions on Prayer. Girardey, C.SS.R. 

Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, $3 75. Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 
Popular Instructions to Parents. Girardey, C.SS.R. Paper, 
0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 

Prayer-Book for Religious. Lasance. net, 1 50 

Preaching. Vol. XV. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Preparation for Death. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Prodigal Son; or, The Sinner’s Return to God. net, 1 00 
Reasonableness of Catholic Ceremonies and Practices. 

Burke. o 35 

Religious State, The. Liguori. net, o 50 

Rosary, The, the Crown of Mary. By a Dominican Father. 

o 10 

per 100, 5 00 

Rosary, The: Scenes and Thoughts. Garesche, S.J. net, o 50 

Rosary, The Most Holy. Meditations. Cramer. net, o 50 

Sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church. Lambing, D.D. 

Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

Sacramentals — Prayer, etc. Muller, C.SS.R. net, 1 00 

Sacred Heart Book, The. Lasance. net, o 75 

Sacred Heart, Devotion to, for First Friday of Every Month. 

Huguet. net, 0 40 

Sacred Heart, New Manual of. o 50 

Sacrifice of the Mass Worthily Celebrated, The. Chaig- 
non, S.J. net, 1 50 

Saint Francis of Assissi. By Rev. Leo L. Dubois, S.M. 

net, 1 00 

Secret of Sanctity. St. Francis de Sales. net, 1 00 

Seraphic Guide, The. By a Franciscan Father. o 60 

Short Conferences on the Little Office of the Immaculate 
Conception. Rainer. net, o 50 

Short Stories on Christian Doctrine. McMahon, net, 1 00 

Short Visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Lasance. o 25 

100, 18 00 

Sick Calls; Chapters on Pastoral Medicine. Mulligan, net, 1 00 

Socialism and Christianity. Stang, D.D. net, 1 00 

SODALISTS’ VADE MeCUM. O 50 

Songs and Sonnets. Maurice Francis Egan. net, i oo 

Spirit of Sacrifice, The. Thurston. net, 2 00 


6 


Spiritual Despondency and Temptations. Michel, S.J. 

net , i 25 

Retreat. Smetana, 

net , i oo 
0.30 ; 25 copies, 
4 50 


Spiritual Exercises for a Ten Days’ 

C.SS.R. 

Spiritual Pepper and Salt. Stang. Paper, 


Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies. 

St. Anthony, New Manual of. 

St. Anthony. Keller. 

St. Francis of Assissi,, Social Reformer. 


net , 

Dubois, S.M. 

net , 


00 

60 

75 


00 

50 

50 

00 


Stations of the Cross. Illustrated. 

Stories for First Communicants. Keller, D.D. net , 
Striving after Perfection. Bayma, S.J. net , 

Sure Way to a Happy Marriage. Taylor. 

Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies. 6 00 

Talks with the Little Ones about the Apostles’ Creed. 

By a Religious of The Society of The Holy Child Jesus. 

o 60 

Thoughts and Counsels for the Consideration of Catholic 
Young Men. Doss, S.J. net, 1 25 

Thoughts for All Times. Mgr. Vaughan. o 90 

True Politeness. Demore. net , o 75 

True Spouse of Jesus Christ. Liguori. 2 vols. net , 3 00 
The same, one-vol. edition, net , 1 25 

Two Spiritual Retreats for Sisters. Zollner. net , 1 00 

Veneration of the Blessed Virgin. Rohner, O.S.B, net , 1 25 

Vest-Pocket Gems of Devotion. o 20 

Victories of the Martyrs. Vol. IX. Liguori. net , 1 50 
Visits, Short, to the Blessed Sacrament. Lasance. 0 25 
Visits to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. By the Author 
of “ Ave Spirituels.” net , o 50 

Visits to Jesus in the Tabernacle. Lasance. Cloth, net , 1 25 
Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and to the Blessed Virgin 
Mary. Liguori. net , o 50 

Vocations Explained. Vincentian Father. o 10 

100 copies, 6 on 

Way of Interior Peace. De Lehen, S.J. net , 1 50 

Way of Salvation and Perfection. Meditations, Pious Re- 


flections, Spiritual Treatises. Liguori. 
Way of the Cross. Paper, 0.05; 100 copies, 
What the Church Teaches. Drury. 

Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 


net . 


1 5° 

2 50 

4 5® 
9 00 


JUVENILES. 


An Adventure with the Apaches. Ferry o 45 

Armorer of Solingen. Iierchenbach. o 45 

As true as Gold. Mannix. o 45 

Berkleys, The. Wight. o 45 

Bistouri. Melandri. o 45 

Black Lady, and Robin Red Breast. Schmid. o 25 

Blissylvania Post-Office. Taggart. o 45 

Bob o’ Link. Waggaman. o 45 

Boys in the Block. Egan. o 25 


Z 


Bunt and Bill. Mulholland. o 45 

Buzzer’s Christmas. Waggaman. o 2 5 

By Branscome River. Taggart. o 45 

Cake and the Easter Eggs. Schmid. o 25 

Canary Bird. Schmid. o 45 

Carroll Dare. Waggaman. 1 25 

Cave by the Beech Fork, The. Spalding, S.J. Cloth, o 85 

The Children of Cupa. Mannix. o 45 

Charlie Chittywick. Bearne, S.J. 0 85 

College Boy, A. Anthony Yorke, Cloth. o 85 

Copus, Rev. J. E., S.J. 

Harry Russell. o 85 

Shadows Lifted. o 85 

St. Cuthbert’s. o 85 

Tom Losely: Boy. o 85 

Daughter of Kings, A. Hinkson. 1 2 5 

Dimpling’s Success. Clara Mulholland. o 45 

Double Knot, A, and Other Stories. Waggaman and Others. 

1 2 5 

Ethelred Preston. Finn, S.J. o 85 

Every-Day Girl, An. Crowley. o 45 

Fatal Diamonds. Donnelly. o 25 

Finn, Rev. F. J., S.J. : 

His First and Last Appearance. Illustrated. 1 00 

That Football Game. o 85 

The Best Foot Forward. o 85 

Ethelred Preston. o 85 

Claude Lightfoot. o 85 

Harry Dee. o 85 

Tom Playfair. o 85 

Percy Wynn. o 85 

Mostly Boys. 0 85 

Five O’Clock Stories; or, The Old Tales Told Again. o 75 

Flower of the Flock, The. Egan. o 85 

For the White Rose. Hinkson. 0 45 

Fred’s Little Daughter. Smith. o 45 

Godfrey the Hermit. Schmid. o 25 

Golden Lily, The. Hinkson. 0 45 

Great Captain, The. Hinkson. o 45 

Haldeman Children, The. Mannix. o 45 

Harry Dee; or, Working It Out. Finn. o 85 

Harry Russell, A Rockland College Boy. Copus, S.J. [Cuth- 
bert]. o 85 

Heir of Dreams, An. O’Malley. o 45 

His First and Last Appearance. Finn. 1 00 

Hop Blossoms. Schmid. 0 25 

Hostage of War, A. Bonesteel. o 45 

How They Worked Their Way. Egan. o 75 

Inundation, The. Schmid. o 45 

“ Jack.” By a Religious of the Society of the Holy Child 
Jesus. o 45 

Jack Hildreth Among the Indians. 2 vols. Each, o 85 

Jack Hildreth on the Nile. Taggart. Cloth, o 85 

Jack O’Lantern. Waggaman. 0 45 

Juvenile Round Table. First Series. Stories by the Best 
Writers. 1 00 

Juvenile Round Table, Second Series. 1 00 


8 


Juvenile Round Table. Third Series. i oo 

Klondike Picnic. Donnelly. o 85 

Lamp of the Sanctuary. Wiseman. o 25 

Legends of the Holy Child Jesus from Many Lands. Lutz. 

o 75 

Little Missy. Waggaman. o 45 

Loyal Blue and Royal Scarlet. Taggart. o 85 

Madcap Set at St. Anne’s. Brunowe. o 45 

Mary Tracy’s Fortune. Sadlier o 45 

Master Fridolin. Giehrl. o 25 

Milly Aveling. Smith. Cloth. 0 85 

More Five O’Clock Stories In Prose and Verse. By a Re- 
ligious of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. o 75 

Mostly Boys. Finn. 0 85 

Mysterious Doorway. Sadlier. o 45 

Mystery of Hornby Hall. Sadlier. o 85 

My Strange Friend. Finn. o 25 

Nan Nobody. Waggaman. o 45 

Old Charlmont’s Seed-Bed. Smith. o 45 

Old Robber’s Castle. Schmid. o 25 

One Afternoon and Other Stories. Taggart. 1 25 

Our Boys’ and Girls’ Library. 14 vols. Each. o 25 

Overseer of Mahlbourg. Schmid. o 25 

Pancho and Panchita. Mannix. o 45 

Pauline Archer. Sadlier. o 45 

Pickle and Pepper. Dorsey. o 85 

Playwater Plot, The. Waggaman. 0 60 

Ridingdale Boys, The. Bearne, S.J. 2 volumes, each, 0 85 
Queen’s Page. Hinkson. 0 45 

The Race for Copper Island. Spalding, S.J. o 85 

Recruit Tommy Collins. Mary G. Bonesteel. 0 45 

Rose Bush. Schmid. o 25 

Round the World. Vol. I. Travels. o 85 

Saint Cuthbert’s. Copus, S.J. 0 85 

Sea-Gull’s Rock. Sandeau. o 45 

Senior Lieutenant’s Wager, The. 30 Short Stories. 1 25 
Shadows Lifted. Copus, S.J. _ o 85 

Sheriff of the Beech Fork, The. Spalding, S.J. o 85 

Spalding, S.J. 

Cave by the Beech Fork. o 85 

Sheriff of the Beech Fork, The. o 85 

The Race for Copper Island. o 85 

Strong-Arm of Avalon. Waggaman. 0 85 

Summer at Woodville. Sallier. o 45 

Tales and Legends of the Middle Ages. De Cappella. o 75 
Tales and Legends Series. 3 vols. Each, o 75 

Talisman, The. Sadlier. 60 

Taming of Polly. Dorsey. 0 85 

Three Girls and Especially One. Taggart. o 45 

Three Little Kings. Giehrl. o 25 

Tom’s Lucxpot. Waggaman. 0 45 

Toorallady. Walsh. 0 45 

Trail of the Dragon, The, and Other Stories. By Best 
Writers. 1 2 5 

Transplanting of Tessie, The. Waggaman. o 60 

Treasure of Nugget Mountain. Taggart. o 85 

Two Little Girls. Mack. o 45 


9 


Violin Maker, The. Smith. o 45 

Wager of Gerald O’Rourke, The. Finn-Thiele. net , o 35 

Wayward Winnifred. Sadlier. o 85 

Where the Road Led, and Other Stories. Sadlier, and 
Others. 1 25 

Winnetou, the Apache Knight. Taggart. 0 85 

Wrongfully Accused. Herchenbach. 0 45 

Young Color Guard, The. Bonesteel. 0 45 

NOVELS AND STORIES. 

Carroll Dare. Waggaman. 1 25 

Circus Rider’s Daughter, The. F. v. Brackel. 1 25 

Connor D’Arcy’s Struggles. Bertholds. 1 25 

Corinne’s Vow. Waggaman. 1 2 5 

Dion and the Sibyls. A Classic Novel. Keon. Cloth, 1 25 

Dollar Hunt, The. Martin. o 45 

Fabiola. By Cardinal Wiseman. Popular Illustrated Edition. 

0 go 

Fabiola’s Sisters. Clarke. 1 25 

Fatal Beacon, The. By F. v. Brackel. 1 25 

Hearts of Gold. Edhor. 1 25 

Heiress of Cronenstein, The. Countess Hahn-Hahn. 1 25 

Her Blind Folly. Holt. 1 25 

Her Father’s Daughter. Hinkson. ^ net, 1 2 5 

Idols; or, The Secret of the Rue Chaussee d’Antin. De Navery. 

1 25 

In the Days of King Hal. Taggart. net , 1 25 

“ Kind Hearts and Coronets.” Harrison. 1 25 

Let No Man Put Asunder. Marie. 1 00 

Linked Lives. Douglas. 1 50 

Marcella Grace. Mulholland. Illustrated Edition. 12 5 

Miss Erin. Francis. 1 25 

Monk’s Pardon, The. de Navery. 1 25 

Mr. Billy Buttons. Lecky. 1 25 

Not a Judgment. By Keon. 1 25 

Other Miss Lisle, The. Martin. 1 25 

Out of Bondage. Holt. 1 25 

Outlaw of Cam argue, The. de Lamothe. 1 25 

Passing Shadows. A Novel. Yorke. 1 25 

Pere Monnier’s Ward. A Novel. Lecky. 1 25 

Pilkington Heir, The. A Novel. Sadlier. 1 25 

Prodigal’s Daughter, The. Begg. 1 00 

Red Inn of St. Lyphar, The. By Anna T. Sadlier. 1 25 

Romance of a Playwright, de Bornier. 1 00 

Round Table of the Representative American Catholic 
Novelists. i 50 

Round Table of the Representative French Catholic Novel- 
ists. 1 50 

Round Table of the Representative German Catholic 
Novelists. Illustrated. 1 50 

Round Table of the Representative Irish and English Cath- 
olic Novelists. i 50 

Ruler of The Kingdom, The. Keon. 1 25 

Soggarth Aroon, The. Guinan, C.C. 1 25 

That Man’s Daughter. Ross. i 25 

Training of Silas, The. Devine, S.S. 1 25 


10 


True Story of Master Gerard, The. Sadlier. 
Unraveling of a Tangle, The. Taggart. 
Vocation of Edward Conway. Egan. 

Way that Led Beyond, The. Harrison. 
Woman of Fortune, A. Reid. 

World Well Lost. Robertson. 


i 25 

1 25 
1 25 
1 25 
1 25 
o 75 


LIVES AND HISTORIES. 

Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola. O’Conor. 

Anglican Ordinations. Semple, S.J. 

Bad Christian, The. Hunolt. 2 vols. 

Bible Stories for Little Children. Paper, 0.10. 


Cloth, 
net , 1 25 
net , o 35 
net , 5 00 
Cloth, 

0 20 

1 00 
o 75 


Business Guide for Priests. Stang. 

Church History. Businger. 

Christian’s Last End, The. Sermons. Hunolt, S.J. 2 vols. 

net , 5 00 

Christian’s Model, The. Sermons. Hunolt, S.J. 2 vols. 

net , s 00 

Christian State of Life, The. Sermons. Hunolt, S.J. 2 
vols., net , 5 00 

Golden Bells in Convent Towers. Story of Father Samuel 
and Saint Clara. net , 1 00 

Historiography Ecclesiastica quam Historiae seriam Solidam- 
que Operam Navantibus, Accommodavit Guil. Stang, D.D. 

net , 1 00 

History of the Catholic Church. Brueck. 2 vols. net , 3 00 

History of the Catholic Church. Shea. net , 1 50 

History of the Protestant Reformation in England and 

Ireland. Cobbett. Cloth, net , 0 75 

Letters of St. Alphonsus Liguori. Grimm, C.SS.R. 5 vols.. 
Each, net , 1 50 

Life and Life-Work of Mother Theodore Guerin, Foundress 
of the Sisters of Providence at St.-Mary-of-the-Woods, Vigo 
County, Indiana. net , 2 00 

Life of Blessed Virgin. Illustrated. Cochem. net , 1 25 

Life of Ven. Mary Crescentia Hoess. Degman, O.S.F. 

net , 1 25 

Life of Saint Vincent de Paul. Maloy, C.M. 

Paper, o 25 

Cloth, o 35 

Life of Christ. Illustrated. Cochem. net , 1 25 

Life of Fr. Francis Poilvache, C.SS.R. Paper, net , 0 20 

Life of Most Rev. John Hughes. Brann. net , o 75 

Life of Sister Anne Katherine Emmerich, of the Order of St. 

Augustine. Wegener, O.S.A. net , 1 75 

Life of St. Anthony. Ward. Illustrated. net , o 75 

Life of St. Catharine of Sienna, Ayme, M.D. 1 00 

Little Lives of Saints for Children. Illustrated. Cloth, 

o 60 

Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints. net , 1 25 

Lourdes — Its Inhabitants, Its Pilgrims, and Its Miracles. 

Clarke, S.J. net , 1 00 

Middle Ages, The. Rev. Thos. J. Shahan, S.I.D.J.U.L. 2 00 


iz 


Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano. net, o 75 

Outlines of Jewish History. Gigot, S.S. # net, 1 50 

Outlines of New Testament History. Gigot, S.S. net, 1 50 

Patron Saints for Catholic Youth. Illustrated. o 60 

Pictorial Lives of the Saints. Cloth, net, 2 00 

Reminiscences of Rt. Rev. E. P. Wadhams. _ net, 1 00 
Sheaf of Golden Years, A. Mary Constance Smith, net, 1 00 

net, 1 00 

Sheaf of Golden Years, A. Smith. net, 1 00 

St. Anthony, The Saint of the Whole World. net, o 75 

Story of Jesus. Illustrated. o 60 

Story of the Divine Child. Lings. o 60 

Victories of the Martyrs. Liguori. net , 1 50 

Visit to Europe and the Holy Land. Fairbanks. 1 50 


THEOLOGY, LITURGY, SERMONS, SCIENCE, AND 
PHILOSOPHY. 

Abridged Sermons, for All Sundays of the Year. Liguori. 

Grimm, C.SS.R. # . net, 1 50 

Across Widest America. Rev. A. J. Devinie, S.J. 1 5 ° 

Benziger’s Magazine. per year, 2 00 

Blessed Sacrament, Sermons on the. Edited by Lasance. 

net, 1 50 

Breve Compendium Theologiae Dogmaticae et Moralis. 

Berthier. net, 2 50 

Cantata Catholica. B. H. F. Hellebusch. net, 2 00 

Ceremonial for Altar Boys. Rev. Matthew Britt, O.S.B. 

net, o 35 

Children of Mary, Sermons for the. Callerio. net, 1 50 
Children’s Masses, Sermons for. Frassinetti-Lings. 


net, 1 50 
net, 2 oa 
net, 1 5 O' 
net, 4 00 
net, 0 2$ 


Christian Apologetics. Devivier, S.J. 

Christian Philosophy: God. Driscoll. 

Christ in Type and Prophecy. Maas, S.J. 2 vols., 

Church Announcement Book. 

Church Treasurer’s Pew-Collection and Receipt Book. 

net, 1 00 

Compendium Juris Canonici. Smith. net, 2 00 

Compendium Juris Regularium. Edidit P. Aug. Bachofen, 

net, 2 50 

Compendium Sacrae Liturgiae Juxta Ritum Romanum, 

Wapelhorst. Editio sexta emendatior. net, 2 50 

Compendium Theologiae Dogmaticae et Moralis. Berthier. 

net, 2 50 

Confessional, The. Right Rev. A. Roeggl, D.D. net, 1 00 
Data of Modern Ethics Examined. Rev. John J. Mina, S. J. 

2 00 

De Philosophia Morali Praelectiones. Russo. net, 2 00 

Diary, Order and Note-Book. 

Cloth, net, 0 75 

Flexible Leather, net, 1 25 

Ecclesiastical Dictionary. Rev. John Thein. net, 5 00 

Elements of Ecclesiastical Law. Rev. S. B. Smith, D.D. 
Ecclesiastical Persons. net, 2 50 

Ecclesiastical Punishments. net, 2 50 

Ecclesiastical Trials. net, 2 50 


Elocution Class. Eleanor O’Grady. net, o 50 

Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII. net, 2 25 

Funeral Sermons. Rev. Aug. Wirth, O.S.B. 2 vols., net, 2 00 
General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scriptures. 

Gigot, S.S. Cloth, net, 2 50 

General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scriptures. 
Abridged Edition. Rev. Francis E._ Gigot, S.S. net, 1 50 


God Knowable and Known. Ronayne, S.J 
Good Christian, The. Allen, D.D. 2 vols.. 
History of the Mass. O’Brien. 

Hunolt’s Sermons. 12 vols., 

Hunolt’s Short Sermons. 5 vols., 

Hymn. Book of Sunday School Companion. 
Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures 


net, 1 50 
net, 5 00 
net, 1 25 
net, 25 00 
net, 10 00 
0 35 

Gigot. 

net, 1 50 

Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament. Vols. I_ 
and II. Gigot. net, 1 50 

Jesus Living in the Priest. Millet-Byrne. net, 2 00 

Last Things, Sermons on the Four. Hunolt. 2 vols. 

net, 5 00 

Lenten Sermons. Edited by Wirth, O.S.B. net, 2 00 

Liber Status Animarum. Pocket Edition, net, 0.25; half 

leather, net, 2 00 

Marriage Process in the United States. Smith. net, 2 50 
Moral Principles and Medical Practice, the Basis of Medical 
Jurisprudence. Coppens, S.J. net, 1 00 

Medulla Fundamentalis Theologiae Moralis. Auctore Gu- 

lielmo Stang. net, 1 00 

Mores Catholici or Ages of Faith. By Digby. 4 vols. 25 00 
Natural Law and Legal Practice. Holaind, S.J. net, 2 00 
New and Old Sermons. Wirth, O.S.B. 8 vols., 

Outlines of Dogmatic Theology. Hunter, S. J. 


net, 16 00 
3 vols., 
net, 4 50 
net, 150 


Outlines of Jewish History. Gigot, S.S. 

Outlines of New Testament History. Gigot. Cloth, 

net, 1 50 

Outlines of Sermons for Young Men and Young Women. 

net, 2 00 

Pastoral Theology. Stang, D.D. net, 1 50 

Penance, Sermons on. Hunolt. 2 vols., net, 5 00 

Penitent Christian, The. Sermons. Hunolt. 2 vols., 

net, 5 00 

Pew-Rent Receipt Book. net, 1 00 

Phwlosophia de Morali. Russo. net, 2 00 

Political and Moral Essays. Rickaby, S.J. net, 1 50 

Praxis Synodalis. Manuale Synodi Diocesanae ac Provincialis 
Celebrandae. net, o 75 

Priest in the Pulpit, The. Suelbemann. net, 1 50 

Readings and Recitations for Juniors. O’Grady. net, 0 50 

Record of Baptisms. 14x10 Inches, 3 Styles. 

Record of Marriages. 14x10 Inches, 3 Styles. 

Registrum Baptismorum. net, 3 50 

Registrum Matrimoniorum. net, 3 50 

Relation of Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. Mgr. 

Mercier. net, o 35 

Rights of Our Little Oner. Conway, S.J. 0.10; per 100, 

7 50 


Rituale Compendiosum seu Ordo Administrandi quaedam Sacra- 
menta et alia Officia Ecclesiastica Rite Peragendi ex Rituali 
Romano, novissime editio desumptas. net, o 90 

Sanctuary Boys’ Illustrated Manual. McCallen. net, o 50 
Select Recitations for Catholic Schools and Academies. 


Eleanor O’Grady. . 1 00 

Sermons, Abridged, for Sundays. Liguon. net, 1 25 

Sermons for Children of Mary. Callerio. _ _ net, 1 50 

Sermons for Children’s Masses. Frassinetti-Lings. net ^ 1 50 

Sermons for the Sundays and Chief Festivals of the Eccle- 
siastical Year. Pottgeisser, S.J. 2 vols. net, 2 50 

Sermons from the Latins. Baxter. net, 2 00 

Sermons, Funeral. Wirth. 2 vols. net, 2 00 

Sermons, Hunolt’s. 12 vols. net, 2 5 00 

Sermons, Hunolt’s Short. 5 vols. net, 10 00 

Sermons, Lenten. Wirth. net, 2 00 

Sermons, New and Old. Wirth. 8 vols. net, 16 00 

Sermons on Devotion to Sacred Heart. Bierbaum. 


net, o 75 

Sermons on Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. 

Hunolt. 2 vols. 5 00 

Sermons on the Blessed Sacrament. Scheurer-Lasance. 

net, 1 50 

Sermons on the Rosary. Frings. net, 1 00 

Sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins. 2 vols. net, 5 00 

Sermons on Penance. Hunolt. 2 vols. 5 00 

Sermons on the Christian Virtues. Hunolt. 2 vols. 5 00 
Sermons on the Different States of Life. Hunolt. 2 vols. 

5 00 

Sermons on the Four Last Things. Hunolt. 2 vols. 5 00 
Short Sermons. Hunolt. 5 vols. 10 00 

Socialism: Its Theoretical Basis and Practical Application. 

Victor Cathrein, S.J. . 1 50 

Sursum Corda. Hymns. Cloth, 0.25; per 100, 15 00 

Sursum Corda, With English and German Text. o 45 

Theory and Practice of the Confessional. Dr. E. Shieler, 
Professor Moral Theology. 3 50 

Synopsis Theologiae Dogmaticae. Tanquerey, S.S. 3 vols. 

net, 5 25 

Synopsis Tiieologia Moralis et Pastoralis. Tanquerey. 

3 vols. net, 5 25 

Theologia Dogmatica Specialis. Tanquerey. 2 vols. 


net, 3 50 

Views of Dante. By E. L. Rivard, C.S. V. net, 1 25 

Vade Mecum Sacerdotum. Cloth, net, o 25 

Morocco, net, o 50 

What Catholics Have Done for Science. M. S. Brennan. 

net, 1 00 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

A Gentleman. M. F. Egan, LL.D. net, o 75 

A Lady. Manners and Social Usages. Lelia Hardin Bugg. 

net, 0 75 

Bone Rules; or, Skeleton of English Grammar. Tabb, A.M. 
Catholic Home Annual. Stories by Best Writers. o 25 

Correct Thing for Catholics, The. Lelia Hardin Bugg. 

net, o 75 


14 


Guide for Sacristans. 

How to Get On. Rev. Bernard Feeney. 
Little Folks’ Annual, o.io; per ioo. 


net, o 85 


net , 1 00 


6 00 


PRAYER-BOOKS. 

Benziger Brothers publish the most complete line of prayer- 
books in this country. Catalogue will be sent free on ap- 
plication. 

SCHOOL BOOKS. 

Benziger Brothers’ school text-books are considered to be 
the finest published. They embrace: New Century Cath- 
olic Readers. Illustrations in Colors. Catholic National 
Readers. Catechisms. History. Grammars. Spellers. 
Elocution. Charts. 


s/lc 


SB 


I ji.&ifij'sp 

A Home Library for $i Down. 

Original American Stories for the Young, by the V ery Best 
Catholic Authors. 


20 


copyrighted books and a year’s subscription to 
benziger’s magazine (in itself a library of good reading). 


Regular Price of Books, . . - $11.70 (Regular Price, 

Regular price of Benziger’s Magazine, 2.00 ) $13.70. 


Special Net Price, $10.00. $1.00 Down. $1.00 a Month. 


You get the books at once, and have the use of’ them, while mak- 
ing easy payments. Send us only $1.00, and we will forward 
the books at once. $1.00 entitles you to immediate possession. 
No further payment need be made for a month. Afterward 
you pay $1.00 a month. 

ANOTHER EASY WAY OF GETTING BOOKS. 

Each year we publish four new Novels by the best Catholic 
authors. These novels are interesting beyond the ordinary; not 
religious, but Catholic in tone and feeling. 

We ask you to give us a Standing Order for these novels. 
The price is $1.25 a volume postpaid. The $5.00 is not to be 
paid at one time, but $1.25 each time a volume is published. 

As a Special Inducement for giving us a standing order for 
these novels, we will give you free a subscription to Benziger’s 
Magazine. This Magazine is recognized as the best and hand- 
somest Catholic magazine published. The regular price of the 
Magazine is $2.00 a year. 

Thus for $5.00 a year — paid $1.25 at a time — you will get 
four good books and receive in addition free a year’s subscrip- 
tion to Benziger’s Magazine. The Magazine will be continued 
from to year to year, as long as the standing order for the 
novels is in force, which will be till countermanded. 

Send $1.25 for the first novel and get your name placed on 
the subscription list of Benizger’s Magazine. 


BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

New York: Cincinnati: Chicago: 

36 and 38 Barclay 343 Main Street. 211 and 213 Madison 
Street. Street. 


16 




W 










































































































































































































































































































